Osian's Auction Catalogue The Masterpieces Series | March 2010

154 97 J ayaShree C hakravarty (b.1956) Fortune Teller Oil on canvas, 1988 43.0 x 64.7 in (109.2 x 164.3 cm) Provenance THE OSIAN’s COLLECTION INR 1,600,000 – 2,400,000 US$ 33,330 – 50,000 98 r ekha r oDwittiya (b.1958) Untitled Mixed media on paper, Late 1980s 72.0 x 39.8 in (182.7 x 101.0 cm) Provenance THE OSIAN’s COLLECTION INR 1,600,000 – 2,400,000 US$ 33,330 – 50,000 “From the late eighties, the exploration has been in the direction of objectifying the consequences of feminine vulnerability. The protagonist in these are delineated in association with the male symbols like a tree, a pillar, a fish, the chimney of a factory or an aeroplane, and at times along with the images of actual male persona. Evoking doom and tragedy, the compulsive circularity of the human predicament also finds emblematic statement in seemingly simple conjunctions, like a man holding a tree trunk or a fish in his lap, or overtly unassuming arrangements of still-lives with fruits along with protagonist. The hand gestures, postures, twists and turns, gazes and other such specific details of the figure, like the contextualized alignment of symbols, exemplify the ironical, and at other times, the disquiet of anguish.” – Art critic, The India Magazine, October 1992. “My own explorations have led me to a concern with the structure of my objects. Where previously I spewed forth gut level reactions in relation to my treatment of the subjects, I am now searching for a balance between the deliberated and the emotive. The play of gestures, the intertwining of fact and fiction, and the use of myth assume a major role in my pictorial language. I enjoy the dramatic tension of pushing the motifs ‘up front’ to confront the viewer, and manipulating the space as dictated by the occurrences between these motifs.” – Rekha Rodwittya rpt. in Art Heritage 9 , 1989-90, p.23. “Figures in her works may, as the artist explains, bring in a story-telling quality to her paintings. She doesn’t perceive it to be a limitation, as some have suggested. For Ms Chakravarty, the human figure is the via media through which she communicates. The androgynous figure may be the dreamer… or the story-teller, and usually has meaning in relation to the background.” – Preeti Basu Sarkar, Jayashree Chakravarty: Recent Works, CIMA gallery, Calcutta, 1999.