Nitish Bhatacharjee

Nitish Bhattacharya works with bright acrylic colors on large expanses of paper and canvas. His narratives may be described as passionate encounters between lines and hues. In fact, the degree of abstraction is so immense, that the viewer is compelled to question the content behind the inexhaustible layers of texture and colour, as well as the frantic movement of brush strokes that occupy his canvas. Somewhere amidst all the chaos, definite geometrical forms appear afloat the planes of colour. 

Initially, the artist worked with realistic imagery, and his early body of work is predominantly figurative. Over time, however, Bhattacharya’s need to rid his pieces of excessive decoration and ornamentation seems to have pushed him to switch to abstract art or “non-representational art”, as the artist prefers to call it. Bhattacharya’s recent works are proof that the artist has been extremely successful in his endeavor to convert form into the formless. He does however affirm that this does not necessarily mean that he will never go back to a figurative idiom. He feels that as long as he’s putting his point across, the language he uses to do so is irrelevant. 

Born in 1973, Nitish Bhattacharya completed his bachelor’s (1996) and master’s (1998) degrees in Painting from the Indore School of Art. He has participated in several group shows throughout India between 1994 and 1999. More recently, his works have been exhibited at ‘Expressions New York’ held at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, in 2002; and at the Harmony Show at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2003. His works are in prestigious private collections around the globe. In India, his works may be viewed at the Roopankar Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, the Jindal Art Foundation and at RPG Enterprises, both in Mumbai. 

Bhattacharya lives and works in Mumbai.