Gallery Art Exposure To Exhibit Drawings By Jogen Chowdhury

Gallery Art Exposure announced The compulsive act: drawings by Jogen Chowdhury, a solo exhibition by Jogen Chowdhury. The exhibition previews from 15th October to 17th December 2022 in Kolkata. 

Jogen Chowdhury’s drawings are characterized by distinctive lines which function not only to shape the visual forms of life but they also to draw out what is supposedly out of sight or buried deep inside the psyche. Lines with various insinuations and widths, sharp or soft, squiggly or aggressive, keep moving around the reality seen and felt and burrowed deep into the psychic realm of human existence. Stylistically speaking, the drawings range from a tender naturalism and expressionism at one end to a highly evolved personal idiom imbued with instinctual drive at the other end. They often overlap to form a characteristic style and tendency of their own, eschewing the trap of a singular style or technique and allowing the creative impulse to innovate a variety of modes to express and convey his stream of thoughts. 

Small, ordinary and even banal visuals of everyday life and natural surrounding find their way effortlessly to Jogen Chowdhury’s six decades long practice of intimate drawings, to his quick scribblings and spontaneous imaginations. This passionate engagement manifests itself in numerous drawings made by the artist since the beginning of his journey. Till date he continues to draw ceaselessly and compulsively at any time and at any place. Random yet intimate, these drawings, executed on any piece of paper he could lay his hand on, eventually grew in number following him at every step. The more we look at them we begin to realize that these drawings tend to claim an independent life of their own, assuming an iconic image-presence, irrespective of what they represent. 

“The compulsive act: drawings by Jogen Chowdhury is a tribute to the extraordinary life and works of the veteran. He draws inspiration from the seemingly mundane and transforms his subjects into entrancing representations of both daily life and pivotal historical events. This selection chronicles Jogen Chowdhury’s artistic habit and is a true testament to his unwavering practice,” says Somak Mitra, Director at Gallery Art Exposure.

“Jogen Chowdhury’s drawings are truly revealing in the sense that they embody a compelling truth an artist aspires for. The truth in this context is multi-layered. It is about an artist’s unremitting visual encounter with the world around and it is also about bringing to the paper what is already in the mind’s eye. A keen observer of life with all its minutiae, Jogen Chowdhury strikes an obsessive relationship with the visual reality in these drawings,” says curatorial advisor Soumik Nandy Majumdar.