Contemporary visual artist-painter, art educator, muralist/public art.
Extensive body of thematic paintings, academic affiliations, exhibitions, critic and public reviews, and other links at the artist's website - 
Details of image at left: "Fleeting impressions", acrylics and tempera on canvas. 58 in. x 69 in.
Guided by unexpected flashes of inspiration, Chitra Ramanathan's images express her ongoing creative journey through a unique body of work which has produced delight, inspiration and peace to lovers of her artwork. The artist's mixed-media paintings are uniquely characteristic of intense colors and multiple layers of varied textural materials that interact with light to "challenge the boundaries of their two dimensional surfaces.
* During her undergraduate years, she allotted time to study painting and art History in Paris, France, with extended time spent at Claude Monet's garden in Giverny, France and other parts of Europe that influenced her later work.
*Several of the Chitra Ramanathan originals are owned by individual collectors and corporations including educational institutions, around the United States and in Europe.
The artist returned to France in 2010, accepting an invitation from Artistay.org to complete a self-directed artist residency at Marnay-sur Seine, completing her month long work in April 2010 by returning to Giverny.
She is a current member of Americans for the Arts and S1 Artpsace, United Kingdom, and has served in the Committee for Diversity Practices of the College Art Association, New York from 2007-2010 and the Services to Artists Committee from 2003-2006.
Drawing and painting from a very early age, painter, educator and muralist Chitra Ramanathan made her foray into art at a weekend art school for children in Kolkata, India when she was four years old. She entered in competitions through several of which she earned prizes throughout her growing years.
Chitra Ramanathan recently returned from a self-directed residency in France, refreshing a pre-existing relationship with that region that was inspirational to her creating a by now known body of work. The painter, art educator and muralist completed a residency at the Camac Centre D'Art at Marnay sur Seine, France in April 2010 upon an invitation and grant offered by Artistay. During her month-long stay in France, she developed a series of plein air conceptual landscapes on wood panels and canvases using them as inspiration for large-scale versions in her studio in the United States.
Says Chitra, "working again in France was an experience that brought memories of my extended visit to Paris and Monet's garden at Giverny in 1992. Little did I realize that it would inspire a large body of work on the theme of gardens based on which I compared the emotion of happiness to the fleeting and cyclical characteristics of ephemeral garden blooms. Here I was in 2010, visiting Giverny and exploring the French countryside, with a similar opportunity to create a variety of conceptual landscapes both en plein air and through the windows of my artist studio at Marnay".
Chitra Ramanathan’s predominately large-scale body of mixed-media paintings are characterized by intense colors and multiple layers of textures that interact with light to "challenge the boundaries of their two-dimensional surfaces". Her uniquely textured, intensely colourful paintings are inspired by short-lived garden blooms and cyclical seasons both of which the artist compares with the continually evolving, ephemeral, fleeting happiness with its "formless form', a phrase coined to describe her concept. Hints of circles signify the human life-cycle, trying times followed by happy phases and of life and rebirth influenced by her roots in India. Her paintings on varied surfaces have been described as "tactile works that resonate with a quiet harmony" by Manhattan Arts International magazine. - Arts News, Arts Council England, July 5, 2010
"E/Motions" Group exhibition at Agora Gallery, Broadyway, New York: Chitra Ramanathan employs paint, anodized aluminum, and Plexiglas to create tactile works that resonate with a quiet harmony.
Originally from India, her work reflects that spiritual culture". -Reviews & Previews by Gordon Dane for Manhattan Arts International magazine, New York, Fall 1995
"Chitra's paintings exemplify her love of nature as well as the subjectivity of each individual's unique pursuit of happiness. Her painting procedure often entails making mental notes of a scene in nature, including the lighting, colors, and textures. She then uses these impressions in her studio to replicate the subject matter in an abstracted form, using rich physical textures, intense colors, and varied media". Interview with Chitra Ramanathan, University of Illinois School of Art and Design Alumni Foundation 2005