Ramanathan’s art at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Photos provided
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
(Exclusive in GwinnettForum)
FEB. 6, 2024 | A local artist has won the 2024 International Tagore Award for outstanding contribution in the field of fine arts. She is Chitra Ramanathan, who has resided in Norcross since 2019, with her husband, a retired physician. She is a member of the Norcross Gallery and Studio, where she has conducted classes. She will soon be teaching a class and workshop in abstract acrylics.
She told GwinnettForum: “It was a surprise to have been chosen for the Tagore Award. I feel it might be because of the many milestones in my field, including high-profile commission projects, and exhibits and artist talks that I have given.” She has a studio in her home.
Chitra paints in a colorful abstract expressionist style, with acrylic as the prime medium, often combined with intricately-layered permanent materials, sometimes known as “happy art.” During a trip to France in 1992, she was influenced by abstract expressionist works portraying mental emotions, initially inspired by Wassily Kandinsky’s works. She frequented Claude Monet’s Garden in Giverny.
She explains: “My art is influenced conceptually by colorful flora, manifested by the changing seasons where I live in the United States, and my passion for gardening, fantasy, dreams and the melody of music. I also borrow from my recollections of colorful festivals, costumes reminiscent of my native India, and the memory of creating floor pattern drawing during my growing years.”
Chitra was born in India, in the state of Kerala, and grew up in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) in West Bengal. She was attracting interest in her art by age 6, encouraged by her mother. At age 10, she received a top prize in a national coloring competition hosted by Unilever. The following year her artwork was exhibited in a venue of the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkata, and she was awarded a trophy. All this led to her majoring in art at Stella Maris College, in Chennal.
Once in the United States, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of Illinois, plus a MBS in arts administration and human resources. By then, she had received a product grant award from Liquitex Paints for two years. Shortly after, the ARC Gallery of Chicago hosted a solo exhibit of her student work.
Her works hang in private collections in the United States, including two works side-by-side at the Bellagio Hotel, the MGM resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. These two paintings are at the Bellagio Conservatory indoor botanical garden. Other of her works have been displayed at studios in New York City on SoHo and on Broadway. Manhattan Arts Magazine published reviews of her work.
In her background, she has been a speaker and visitor artist at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. She held workshops, taught classes, and conducted art demonstrations at the Indianapolis, Indiana, Art Center and at the Art Center at Vero Beach, Fla., before moving to Atlanta.
Overseas, Chitra was a visual artist in residence at the Camac Centre d’Art at Marnay sur Seine, France through UNESCO in 2010, and at the Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy in 2011.
Chitra and her husband have a daughter, who works at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and lives in Decatur with her husband and daughter. The Ramanathans moved to Norcross from Florida to be near her daughter and her family.
The 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), who funded the Tagore prizes for Indian natives to recognize those who have made a positive and lasting impact on the society.
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