UNMASKED

N A N D I TA C H AU D H U R I

Reflections in Brush & Ink

UNMASKED

N A N D I T A

C H A U D H U R I

UNMASKED Reflections in Brush & Ink

NANDITA CHAUDHURI

First published in India in 2024 by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd 706 Kaivanna, Panchvati, Ellisbridge Ahmedabad 380006 INDIA T: +91 79 40 228 228 E: mapin@mapinpub.com www.mapinpub.com with special thanks to Shaun Chaudhuri, Transnational Art UK LLC and Gallery Art & Soul, Mumbai.

Text © Nandita Chaudhuri unless otherwise noted.

Illustrations © Nandita Chaudhuri All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

The moral rights of Harsh Goenka, Sanjeeb Chaudhuri, Rahma Khazam, Virginia Damtsa, Vickram Sethi, Michael Asbury and Nandita Chaudhuri as authors of this work are asserted.

ISBN: 978-93-94501-43-0 COPYEDITING: Ashwati Franklin / Mapin Editorial PROOFREADING: Marilyn Gore / Mapin Editorial

EDITORIAL MANAGEMENT: Neha Manke / Mapin Editorial PHOTO CREDITS: Priyanka Harkness

DESIGN CONCEPT: Nandita Chaudhuri

DESIGN: Nidhi Sah / Mapin Design Studio

PRODUCTION: Gopal Limbad & Rakesh Manger / Mapin Design Studio

Printed in India

Captions: cover Data Cells (detail) (See pp. 134–135) pages 2–3 To Give (detail) (See p. 153) page 5 It’s all Interlinked IV (detail) (See p. 180) page 6 It’s All Interlinked I 48 x 84” Oil and acrylic on canvas pages 8–9 Panchbhutam Sculptures at Kala Ghoda Festival, 2024 pages 10–11 Dreamscape 4 panels, 36 x 60” each Oil and acrylic on canvas

This book is dedicated to Ma and Baban Sanjeeb Chaudhuri, the wind beneath my wings Shaun and Priyanka

“Nandita Chaudhuri writes deeply insightful poems as companions or extensions of her artwork. As an artist, she seems to confront, challenge and collapse conventional borderlines. When the paintings and the poetry are seen side by side, or over each other, they create a potent sensory experience.

The poems are about relationships, the human predicament and the nuances of everyday life. They peel away layers of the outer world to offer glimpses of the inner self. Interestingly, the paintings feed off the poems, the brush draws the word into its space. I have enjoyed the dynamics of colour and the poetry which together create the artist’s world.”

— Javed Akhtar Screenwriter, lyricist and poet

CONTENTS Foreword Sanjeeb Chaudhuri 12 Artist Statement 16 Convergence Harsh Goenka 21 Unshackling the Shackles Rahma Khazam 31 A Confluence of Brush and Pen Virginia Damtsa 40 Poetry in Motion Vickram Sethi 44 Outside Confined Spaces and Definitions 48 METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING Nandita Chaudhuri 56 Child of the Universe 58 Rules of the Pond 100 Relationships 146 Life and Death 190 Sounds of Silence 234 In Conversation with Dr. Michael Asbury 283 Artist Biography 293

FOREWORD WORDS PAINTED THROUGH METAPHORS Sanjeeb Chaudhuri

Unmasked by Nandita is a labour of love; a patient and meticulous collection of her thoughts and perspectives over a long period of time. Some of her incredible body of art from over the years has been uniquely juxtaposed with her poetry to create this inspiring creative output. The paintings and poems appear not by date or genre, but by chapters of introspection and thought. Her works embrace concepts of sustainability of the soul, the universe around it, and the interconnectivity between the two.

They peel away layers of human relationships and behaviour, building awareness for the individual soul, which, today, stands alienated. An empath, she absorbs energy, scrutinizes human behaviour, and fine-tunes the hidden voices encapsulated within her works, to mirror an abject need in the world for deeper empathy.

For those of us who know Nandita well, the creation of a collection like Unmasked is not a surprise. She has always had a very enquiring mind with unique perspectives on people, situations and behaviour. She sees beauty and a sense of the bigger picture in the smallest of gestures, words and actions of all living beings.

To her, the spring and autumn leaves of a garden mirror the journey of life; the consistency of a 12 UNMASKED

mother’s love is found in a doe feeding its fawn; or empathy is found in a herd of elephants traversing miles to mourn the passing of a human being who loved them like their own. Her reflections are captured through rich metaphors that come alive in paint, prose or digital film alike, with deeply emotive content. Through her sustainable art, she hopes to not only change how her work is made, but to also inspire social and cultural change.

Nandita comes from a lineage of strong, confident women. Growing up in a home that was fertile ground for intellectual and enquiring debates and analysis, she was encouraged by her mother, Bela Sarkar, who fed her classic literature rich in anecdotal and visual impact. Mapping newer perspectives, challenging the status quo, and spiritual thinking were the norm. Being her father Bibhutosh Sarkar’s “favourite” facilitated an abundant belief in her abilities, allowing her to blossom in a space that gave her the freedom to think and create with “golden angel wings upon her shoulders,” a metaphor that finds place in many of her paintings.

A free spirit, Nandita looks at life both in an involved and yet detached manner. She

seems to transcend all notions of “fixedcompartmentalized” preconceptions related to gender, form, ageism and, as she calls it, “rules of the pond”. Her energy is highly creative, strong and free. As she says, “Every morning brings a new day, to be spent as a new life, with passion, utmost productivity and positivity.”

Lucidly visual, Nandita’s poems conjure up potent images and emotions in the reader’s mind. Combined with her paintings, her works speak in a universal language that strikes a chord and resonates deeply. Nandita is one of the few artists today to create paintings and deeply introspective work in this manner. The words delve into dense emotions that would not have been possible through paint alone. Juxtaposed, her artworks enhance and intensify, adding newer dimensions and facilitating a potent dialogue.

Deeper constructs infuse additional layers of interpretation through word and rhythm, and Nandita’s work hits true on every level.

Nandita actively expresses herself through new media, evolving continuously, and mastering the complexity of interdisciplinary work, including traditional and contemporary mixed media, NFTs and other digital formats. These pages

The Prodigal 36 x 48” Mixed media on canvas

FOREWORD 13

ARTIST STATEMENT

M

y mixed media paintings are all alive in my head; with the characters all moving and behaving in atypical, even questionable ways. For me, the visual element was not complete with just the physical painting. I needed it to come alive, hence the underlying textual medium of prose and poems.

I use, on a constant basis, technology-led art (holograms, projection mapping, NFTs, etc.) in trying to push boundaries in making art. Each work sits as an amalgam across a multitude of disciplines: painting, poetry, video art, animation and augmented reality. The animated paintings make a deeply emotional and satirical take on various current issues. My poems are juxtaposed as a thin under-layer, further bringing out the harsh brutality in the story.

Upon death you will take nothing with you not even your name, so bear your time well, to just give for that will be denied to you after you are gone Takers have nothing to take with them Givers leave behind a legacy

I have neither gender nor a face to behold I am neither this nor that.

I am formless, free.

I have neither gender nor a face to behold I am neither this nor that I am formless, free.

I have neither gender nor a face to behold I am neither this nor that I am formless, free.

I have neither gender nor a face to behold I am neither this nor that. I am formless, free. I have neither gender nor a face to behold I am neither this nor that I am formless, free.

I have neither gender nor a face to behold I am neither this nor that.

I am formless, free.

I have neither gender nor a face to behold I am neither this nor that I am formless, free.

A gathered bosom full of thoughts and emotions playing truant like the play of light and shadow on the frayed cobbled street

UNSHACKLING THE SHACKLES Rahma Khazam

Nandita Chaudhuri’s allusive multidisciplinary artworks—which range from the satirical commentary of her most recent paintings to meditative poems and striking digital imagery— masterfully suggest the hidden complexities and unrevealed depths concealed behind the smooth facade of daily life. Hovering between realism, surrealism and abstraction, touching on political and feminist themes, and amalgamating both existing and cutting-edge visual media, her semi-figurative works speak of the hidden depths of human nature and its manifestations of joy, warmth, greed and insincerity, testifying to the artist’s unerring eye.

Nandita Chaudhuri’s fascination with the flipside of daily life dates back to the nudes she painted at the start of her 30-year career, having just arrived in London from her native India. These dramatic silhouettes, with their allusive contours partially shrouded in drips of red paint, openly acknowledge women’s freedom and sensuality: neither apologetic nor proper, they are portraits of women who are finally displaying their true selves, revelling in their seething energy and rightful authority and power.

In her subsequent works, Chaudhuri adopted the opposite perspective: instead of painting blossoming, fulfilled nudes, she highlighted the social and psychological constraints underlying our daily lives. These works, which include mixed media collages featuring nails, computer chips and a motherboard, as well as painted safety pins or hangers, are replete with hidden symbolism. In much the same way as early Northern Renaissance paintings such as Jan van Eyck’s the Arnolfini Portrait (1434), were regarded as investing day-to-day objects with hidden meanings that the viewer had to decipher, Chaudhuri transfigures the objects that appear in her paintings. For Chaudhuri, hangers symbolize the categories people assign themselves, the stereotypes through which they live their daily lives. The hangers in Chaudhuri’s canvases are empty, precisely so that viewers can “hang” their own stories on them and thus reconsider and perhaps even transcend the categories in which they are trapped. The safety pins also have multiple meanings: when open, they symbolize hope and the possibility of change, and when closed, withdrawal and immutability. Yet, a closed safety pin is not always a bad thing, for

31

POETRY IN MOTION Vickram Sethi

The behaviour of human beings is limited by their culture. The spread of art and cultural knowledge tends to not only affect the way knowledge is formed but also constructs our universal values and vision. The essence of art is that it allows artists to express their own intellectual world and their own intrinsic individuality. Historically, various artists have shown phenomenal abilities in transforming emotions into powerful and unique works of art. For them, their skill and ingenuity are crucial to the transcendence of art into a functional form and, more importantly, to providing endless possibilities for bridging art with the everyday.

Nandita has a Master’s degree from the London School of Fine Arts (UCL) She followed a similar trajectory as other artists of her generation in the new wave art movement and began experimenting with personal expression as opposed to traditional realism. After graduation, she discovered a newfound affinity towards her Indian roots. From there on, she explored motives with emotive and highly personal expressionism, using the experiences and reflections of her daily life as inspiration. Nandita investigates the relationship between her soul and the world, speculates about the complicated situations of 44 UNMASKED

living and being and thus has gradually evolved a unique language in her paintings.

She is a British Indian artist. Without a doubt, there is a strong influence of British and European painters. Nandita also paints women influenced by the early style of Pablo Picasso.

The nude figure central in the painting sits brazenly, slightly perched, over-accentuating the curvatures of her upper torso. Representation of the female body has always provided artists with fertile territory for exploring a range of formal, conceptual, political and social concerns.

Likewise, a mere cursory inventory of these masterpieces of Western art illustrates changing cultural or societal values, vis-à-vis notions of gender, sexuality and the body, as well as the many artistic and formal conventions or tropes associated with this genre throughout the history of art.

Nandita’s women were born sensitive to nature.

Their facial expressions reveal a despondent blue, and their gazes are acutely sharp enough to penetrate deeply into people’s hearts. Their bodies have lost all tangibility and capture a certain spiritual denotation. Her use of red is her approach to demonstrating an emotion in an

exalted state. Her experimental and deliberately awkward composition drives the viewer to be visually engaged in a satirical dialogue. The uneasy red tone indicates some discomfort and contrasts with the series of clogs symbolizing the anxiousness of the contradiction between the objects and the nude woman.

Nandita approaches art with fearlessness, purity, intensity and vulnerability; with brutal honesty, she reveals her emotions so absolutely. Full of contradictions: strong and soft, opaque and transparent, dark and light, her paintings represent the dual facets of her being and, perhaps more significantly, reveal the dichotomy that exists in all of us. The candour and fragility with which she unravels her emotions may be among the reasons her works are as riveting as reading someone’s memoir and as intimate as knowing someone’s secret. Nandita’s art reminds us that we are only human, both fragile and strong, passionate and rational, constantly changing.

Looking at a work by Nandita is like taking a journey through the terrains of her mind. Each plane, layer, crack, and line forms a landscape of hills, abysses, and plateaus that denotes joy, tears, fear, courage, pain and ecstasy. Nandita

reuses the symbols that have previously appeared in her work. She enlarges them and extracts their details in order to investigate their further hidden meanings and from here spring forth her poems and the series of unconnected thoughts within thoughts. The poems and the paintings are not in any way connected but a result of one over the other. She uses symbolism to illustrate the contradictions in life. The safety pins and threads that at some point would have held up a crucial garment appear repetitively in her work like a reminder of a garment malfunction.

She is a multidimensional artist, poet, painter, filmmaker, tinker, tailor, and soldier spy. Her installations seem to be randomly-put fragments that break the restrictions of time and space. Yet, they are deliberately there, triggered by the rapid development of the information age. She controls various contradictions and confrontations with calmness and tenderness. Nandita’s poetry is the voice of a little girl speaking so softly that one strains to hear what she is saying. Words that could revitalize a musical composition.

Vickram Sethi is an art curator and Founder of ICIA, Arts Trust & Asta Guru Auction House.

POETRY IN MOTION 45

RULES OF THE POND

The Radius The stars twinkled a million miles away shining bright She gazed upward, rapt in wonderment and joy A feeling of rush causing a shiver, akin only to when she had been struck by the magnetism of her favourite movie star. Her shining mirror, had, in anticipation, reflected the glow of sheer admiration on her cheeks.

One day, she found a magic bag of wonder in the pond All her idols, the king, the sun and stars were all in there, wanting to be her closest friend Her heart lurched; wasn’t she lucky?

As the weeks rolled by, her thoughts slowly shifted.

She gazed in her tattered mirror, And inspected the warts on her smooth skin She now felt envy at their differing lots in life Till one day she was swept by a killing stab of envy that washed her soul inside out Why did the stars sparkle more than her eyes?

“The inner circle causes envy, resentment and comparison,” the mirror said.

“Set them free to somewhere beyond So that their shining light will not reflect black night.”

So she reached into the pond, and slowly released the stars into the beckoning waters And some into the open skies She did the same with all that came within the radius of the inner circle, So that that pond waters were no longer disturbed Deliverance at last from the grey pallor of sharp envy That had engulfed her heart Till her body sagged with the release.

A Misfit Saltwater fish does not survive in spring water hence if you intermingle habitats you may not get the result you desire.

Even if you try your best to fit triangle pegs into circles.

Tribe Groups You have been ascribed a tribe group Breathe deeply into it.

Inhale Wear the tribe clothes Share their beliefs Sing their songs Your tongue craves their food It also curls with a certain intent As it lets out the tribal scent High in the air Like ancient drums.

The tribal scent is strong Intoxicating Dense It’s safe, like being in a dark cave All else outside is the ‘other’ Hence incomprehensible Even atrocious Point a long thin finger To the horizons Outside the tribal boundaries As you huddle in your cave.

Tribe Groups 39 x 50” Oil and acrylic on canvas

138 UNMASKED

Soul Connections Blood doesn’t speak Neither does money For when the soul asks for connections it speaks through energy waves connecting auras.

Attracting and repelling Like atoms dancing in the universe.

Between the Lines 36 x 36” Mixed media on canvas

154 UNMASKED

Eternal Love Love has no language.

Has no words or expectations.

Has no give or take.

It’s just a conjoining of souls so very deep that anything outside is irrelevant.

You think of the other and are just suffused with a warm glow of truth purity and oneness.

How I pine and long for you and then I know you live on for lifetimes in my heart as I live in yours.

RELATIONSHIPS 155

It’s Out There Somewhere II 21 x 28” Oil on paper

Lone Star A lone star shining bright is it reflecting or emitting light Does it belong to the galaxy or is it floating free, exercising its will to traverse the skies, flitting from one universe to another Or is it sitting in repose, captive in time and space, by multiple gravitation fields embedded in sky folds for eternity?

SOUNDS OF SILENCE 245

Hope 24 x 36” Oil and acrylic on canvas

Random Theory Are people born with destiny preordained Do things happen as they are meant to Are afflictions, fortune and misfortune part of some celestial design Can you change this design by free will, Or are differing lots in fate, a result of a random theory, You are dealt random cards and there is no reason for the randomness Like scattered balls falling from somewhere or nowhere, which roll to myriad destinations You accept these and carry on playing the hand life has dealt you.

SOUNDS OF SILENCE 271

Untitled 36 x 48” Oil and acrylic on canvas

IN CONVERSATION WITH DR. MICHAEL ASBURY during Nandita Chaudhuri’s M.A. studies at the Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) at University of the Arts, London, 2010.

MA: My immediate impression upon seeing your paintings was one of shock. You are, through the use of paint, implying a certain violence, or perhaps violation, by juxtaposing energetically applied colour with the imagery of a naked body.

The way in which the body, a woman’s body, is presented, appears at first sensuous, perhaps pornographic even. The manner in which these bodies are painted also relates to the history of Western European art history. Yet, speaking to you before actually having seen these paintings, I had the impression that you were dealing with issues relative to your cultural displacement.

How do you see these two fields of enquiry, the subjective and the historical/political, interconnecting?

NC: The works are titled Retinal Residue, implying that layers of influences have converged, leaving in their wake some residual matter in the retina; after eliminating some waste. A lot of this retained residue is dependent on the perceptual consciousness and perhaps through selective memory, some images are retained as a result of context and/or the imagination. The reproductive imagination is the by-product of an association of ideas, objects and the context. The connection between the associated items is contingent,

and dependent on various experiences, and in this case they are multicultural. They, therefore, consist of complex patterns of sensuous states constructed by a productive imagination.

The outcome is a unified process guided by a combination of sensory input, memories, expectations, and varied influences.

I don’t see a naked body necessarily as sensuous, although that aspect cannot be denied. In this case, I was confronting a stark and immediate brutality; and have articulated through aggressive paint the inherent raw quality of the image in an attempt to provoke a strong visual experience.

Whether the womb embraces, spits, devours or produces, these are all part of a spiritual cycle that relates to the birthing process. Whether it is burgeoning, full, or hollow and empty, these are states that could be fraught with angst or celebration. It does not make any difference if she is clothed. And clothing cannot deny the consciousness, spiritual or sensuous quality of the woman. The works may have feminist leanings in that they speak clearly from a feminine subjectivity, especially with the use of mangled safety pins, dogs and phallic symbols which might draw some Freudian assumptions.

The presentation is without apology, devoid of 283

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

N

andita Chaudhuri is a globally recognized British artist of Indian origin. She studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, going on to do an M.A. in Fine Arts from Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts, London (UAL), and a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Arts (UAL). She also has an M.A. in Marketing from Westminster Business School, London.

As a multidisciplinary artist, she works across canvas, digital film, installation and print. Her poems and paintings flow from the same brush, blurring the boundaries between media. Her NFTs were shown at the Musa Pavilion during the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2022. In addition, she has participated in the prestigious Florence Biennale in 2009, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2014, and Pre-Biennale, Venice in 2011. She has been recognized as one of the leading NFT artists today. In April 2022, she was awarded ‘The International Caravaggio Prize: Great Master of the Arts’, for top technology-led artists, at the National Museum of Science and Technology Milan. She was shortlisted for the Columbia Threadneedle Figurative Art Prize by the Mall Galleries in London in 2009, and, in 2020, was awarded a Luxembourg Art Prize certificate.

Nandita’s works are displayed in the permanent collections of major global hotel chains, private collectors and various museums. In Mumbai, a large work hangs in the lobby of the St Regis Hotel. She has shown her works in London at the British Museum, the Royal Academy and the Saatchi Gallery. She has also exhibited at the China Art Museum Shanghai, the Czech Baroque Museum Foundation in Prague, and the London Frieze Art Fair. She has supported a number of charitable institutions by providing large artworks to several Elephant Parades in London, Singapore and Hong Kong, and other outdoor installations. Her works hang in the permanent collection at the Museum of Spiritual Art (MOSA), in Belgium. In addition, posters of her art have also been displayed in the London Underground at the Gloucester Road Station.

Nandita works out of her studios in London, Dubai and Mumbai.

293

HIGHLIGHTS

UNMASKED

Solo show and book launch The show has 12 digital films, 11 sculptures and 40 paintings.

April 11–May 5, 2024

Musa Pavilion

Digital Films/NFTs During the 59th Biennale Di Venezia 2022

Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York Square, London, group show, curated by

Tanya Baxter Contemporary November 15, 2012

294 UNMASKED

Kochi Muziris Biennale,

collateral show Hidden Voices A technology-led installation where multiple bottles are suspended, floating in space in a dark room.

Each of these has a film running in them like trapped voices, awaiting release. The works collectively seek to explore the subliminal layers and narratives trapped in their crevices.

The bottled entities seem to emit a “transmission of emotional energy” in the form of physical waves or a cosmic dance in bottled entrapment, begging for realization or arbitration.

December 12, 2014–March 29, 2015

British Museum, London, group show Unspoken Whisper Silence has a definitive sound, like a gentle or howling wind, depending on who is listening. The unspoken whisper is made of poems, in varied moods: reflective and yet based on the ear of the perceiver.

May 20, 2013

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London

June–August 2009

Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contemporanea, (Florence Biennale), Italy

December 5–13, 2009

Mall Galleries TNFP Prize, Mall Galleries, London Bulls & Bears

Nandita is one of seven shortlisted artists for the Threadneedle Figurative Prize, judged by Richard Cork, Angela Flowers, Hew Locke, William Packer and art critic Brian Sewell. Sponsored by: ING Direct August 28–September 5, 2008

Frieze Art Fair, London, curated by Filipa Oliveira and Miguel Amado, Impossible Exchanges 2009

Visual Arts Gallery, New Delhi; and Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi Retinal Residue, solo show

January 2010

HIGHLIGHTS 295

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART NANDITA CHAUDHURI

UNMASKED

Reflections in Brush & Ink

300 pages, 175 illustrations 10 x 10” (254 x 254 mm), hc-plc ISBN: 978-93-94501-43-0 ₹4950 | $75 | £55 April 2024 • World rights

Nandita Chaudhuri’s works take a deep dive into peeling away the onion layers of human behaviour in a stark and vivid manner. The poems and paintings rely on graphic metaphors to convey a common thread. Introspection, coupled with profound, thought-provoking stories, explores and re-engages with deep impressions and stored images snatched from life. The two mediums, when juxtaposed, delve into emotions that would not have been possible alone, creating cross currents as they dissolve into each other. Like yin and yang, at times, they display the connectivity between the human soul and the universe at large and, at others, depict the paucity and dissociation between them. An interplay of narratives throughout the book enables a storyline that depicts the object and the crevices within. Together, they create a unique multilayered sensory experience, conveying deep introspection with incredible synergy.

ABOUT THE ARTIST Nandita Chaudhuri is a globally recognized British artist of Indian origin. She studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, going on to do an M.A. in Fine Arts from Camberwell

College of Arts, University of the Arts, London (UAL), and a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Arts (UAL). She also has an M.A. in Marketing from Westminster Business School, London. A multidisciplinary artist, she works across canvas, digital film, installation and print, blurring boundaries between media. She has participated in the Florence Biennale (2009), the Kochi Muziris Biennale (2014), and Pre-biennale, Venice (May 2011). Her works have been shown at the British Museum; The Royal Academy, London; Saatchi Gallery, London; the China Art Museum, Shanghai; The Czech Baroque Museum Foundation, Prague; Frieze Art Fair; Elephant Parades in Singapore, Hong Kong and London, besides finding place in the permanent collections of various museums, global hotel chains and private collectors. Nandita works out of her studios in London, Dubai and Mumbai. ₹4950 | $75 | £55

ISBN 978-93-94501-43-0

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