Title: অ ব মা ন ব / a v a m ā n a v a: A Solo Exhibition by Arindam Chatterjee
Time: 7 November – 24 December 2025
Place: Emami Art, Ground Floor
Emami Art is pleased to announce অ ব মা ন ব / a v a m ā n a v a, Arindam Chatterjee's second major solo exhibition, opening on 7 November 2025.
Deeply psychological yet ingrained in our shared experience, the set of around thirty works – mostly on paper – explores profound human ethics and Francis Bacon's concept of the Brutality of Fact. Encountering his recent works is an experience of witnessing the artist's unique pictorial ways of tearing down the stable, representational veils that hide the fact or truth of human existence, opening up a visual world which is unfinished, unfamiliar and confused.
Arindam Chatterjee is primarily a figurative painter. Having started his career as an abstract painter in the 1990s, he began pursuing figurative painting in the mid-2000s. His powerful, often troubling images of man and animal, which apparently look mythological or outlandish, are deeply linked to our social, political and cultural realities. He forged a singular style producing a large body of work which combines rich abstract pigmentation and medium work, and the images of pathos and irony.
We have used the word অ ব মা ন ব in the sense Rabindranath Tagore has done it. The poet coins it as a translation of "sub-man" or "sub-human," which denotes an existence or position between that of a base animal and a fully enlightened human being. In this exhibition, we traverse the critical space of the sub-human as the artist endeavours to convey the point that he has experienced in his works, evoking jijñāsā (the desire to know), terror, and menace.
CEO Press Statement
Following the success of Arindam Chatterjee's large-scale show at our gallery in 2023, we are pleased to present his latest body of work, characterised by a heightened intimacy and introspection. Though widely known for his work and appreciated, Chatterjee maintains a low public profile and shies away from the limelight. These pieces on display reflect the artist's ongoing inner dialogue and self-inquiry. There is a sense of aloofness and detachment in his work. Having showcased his work for many years, we believe that this exhibition, much like the previous one, will captivate and enchant its audience.
- Richa Agarwal, CEO, Emami Art
BIO
Arindam Chatterjee (b. 1972) studied painting at the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata and Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.
His solo exhibitions include Not a Dream, Not Peace, Not Love at Emami Art, Kolkata, 2024; The Lightning Should Have Struck Me, Gandhara Art Gallery, Kolkata, 2015; Recent Work by Arindam Chatterjee, Akar Prakar, Kolkata, 2012; Monologues, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2006; and The Airborne Stories, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata, 2005. His group exhibitions include All That is Hidden, Emami Art, Kolkata, 2024; India Art Fair 2025, 2024, 2023, and 2022; Art Mumbai 2024; Constellations, Emami Art, Kolkata, 2020; and Black Hole Project, Art Multi-Discipline, Kolkata, 2018; among others.
Chatterjee was awarded the Navonmesha Puraskara in 2003, the National Cultural Scholarship and Junior Research Fellowship from the Government of India, the H K Kejriwal Memorial Award in 1997, and the Silver Prize in the Drawing and Design Exhibition in Kyoto, Japan.
He lives and works in Kolkata, India.
