We are proud to present 'Chitrakar Samman Art Award 2023' to

Mr. Srinjoy Gangopadhyay
Born in 1986 in Kolkata, India,
Srinjoy Gangopadhyay currently lives and works in Atlanta, US.

A highly acclaimed International Pop & Urban artist Srinjoy’s work has been exhibited with legends like Damient Hirst, Jeff Koons and Futura. His street art has been featured in major street art maps in the US. His work is regularly exhibited and collected from major galleries in the USA, UK and Canada and has been featured in multiple editions of the highly prestigious and most comprehensive Contemporary Art Fairs including Art Miami Context Art Fair during the Art Basel Week, LA Art Show, Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Wynwood, Hamptons Fine Art Fair, Art Expo New York, Affordable Art Fair New York on multiple occasions. His work has been described as being part of “The most innovative, imaginative, brilliant new generation of extraordinary inspirational contemporary pop & urban art voices internationally.”
Born into a family of artists, he was introduced to the joy of creating art at a very early age. In 2014 he received his MFA in Painting from SCAD Atlanta. Srinjoy has professionally worked in the design and animation industry before he worked with many street/urban artists and later as an artist assistant under the tutelage of internationally famous contemporary pop art legend Craig Alan. These experiences were crucial for developing his artistic vision as a contemporary pop/urban artist.
Srinjoy explores themes of ‘Utopia’ in contemporary art through reflective, meditative or critical expressions in a ‘Pop Surrealism’ language. His highly collectable works are witty, humorous, conceptual and plays with the visual perception of materiality and space. His highly sophisticated technique brings street art approach in a fine art context and also combines the traditional with new media. Ranging from glitch aesthetics to deep ecology Srinjoy’s well informed works often reimagine utopian past or take the viewer to an alternative realm.

About Srinjoy Gangopadhyay

My art has recently been exhibited, showcased and featured with Banksy, Jeff Koons, Damient Hirst, Futura and many of theHighly Collectable International Urban/Pop Art Legends of who are at the very top of contemporary Art world. I just completed exhibiting my art in the 2022 Art Basel Week in Miami with Connect Contemporary Gallery at the most comprehensive international contemporary art fair in the United States, the Art Miami Context Art Fair 2022. This is my second consecutive year at the Art Basel Week. In 2021 my work was successfully exhibited in the highly prestigious Art Miami Context Art Fair when the best of the art world get together in Miami for this major annual art event. At this high end art fair I had a solo wall exhibiting my work by S16 Gallery the famous Canadian Urban Art Gallery.

In the last few years my works have been exhibited in some of the most important High End Art Fairs across the USA including LA Art Show, Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Wynwood, Art Expo New York, Affordable Art Fair New York. I currently have Gallery Representations in a number of prestigious Contemporary Pop and Urban Art galleries in USA, Europe and Canada including Whitewall Galleries, UK, Clarendon Fine Art, UK, The Lemongrove Gallery, UK, Galerie Mensing, Germany, S16 Gallery, Canada, Deljou Art Group, USA, Connect Contemporary, USA, Scope Fine Art, USA, Hayes Gallery, USA, Offthewall Gallery, USA, Royal Street Fine Art, USA, Carousel Fine Art, USA, Fascination Street Fine Art, USA, The Art Source, USA, One Martin Gallery, USA, Art leaders Gallery, USA among many more. My work is in private collections of numerous collectors across the USA, Europe,Canada, United Arab Emirates and India including celebrity collectors such as the collection of American entrepreneur, author, and rapper & the co-founder of Marquis Jet - Jesse Itzler and his wife Sarah Blakely- founder of Spanx. I recently received Chitrakar Sanman Art Award which is an international art award for global recognition in Contemporary Art.

I had this belief since a very young age that “I was born to paint.” and always wanted to pursue a creative career. My father being a fine artist himself, my passion for viewing fine art daily and reading about the lives and works of fine artists, developed naturally. I was introduced to the joy of creating art at a very early age in my father’s art studio. After professionally working in the design and animation industry for a short while I decided to pursue my lifelong goal to become a full time Fine Artist. I traveled the world, worked with many street/urban artists and later as an artist assistant under the tutelage of internationally famous contemporary pop art legend Craig Alan. These experiences were crucial for developing my artistic vision as an international contemporary pop/urban artist.

I graduated from the SCAD Atlanta MFA program in 2014 and joined Deljou Art Group which is the award winning largest ‘Fine Art Publisher’ in the world. As a ‘Lead Artist’ for this company I am currently creating my own brand of contemporary fine art that is regularly exhibited and collected in major galleries in the USA,Canada, Europe, Asia and has been featured in the most important and comprehensive Contemporary Art Fairs in multiple editions.

Works

Contemporary Popular culture, Urban culture, mass media visual culture and new consumerism for me alludes to collective utopias that attract. In my work, iconic visual material from these sources are reinterpreted in a creative remix through unique visual sampling. Commenting on the joint rise of consumerism and celebrity culture.to reflecting on the contemporary digital visual culture and our everyday digital visual and social experiences are the key concerns. My process rooted in collage aesthetics, proposes celebratory, humorous and witty alternative narratives. Building Utopian models as reflective, meditative or critical tools in a Pop Surrealism language is the central overarching pursuit of my art practice. I would like to introduce my new contemporary pop collections that are the latest evolution of my popular ’ICON’ series.

Icon Glamour Quintessence :

The Icon Glamour Quintessence is a series of conceptual Pop Surreal portraits of cultural Icons. These show stopper pieces offer multidimensional perspectives that establish a deeper understanding of an Icon’s identity, merged into a single awe-inspiring masterpiece. Bringing together elements of cubism, photorealism and glitch aesthetics the artist creates multifaceted compositions. Combining and overlapping several perspectives in one single composition, the ’Prismatic’ concept has been explored. Drawing from the traditional concept of the circular ‘Mandalas’, the artist has created a contemporary pop surreal interpretation which represent the extraordinary universe of these personalities who are worshiped as Icons. The colorful drips formed by stripes of thick paint rolling down the pictorial surface and falling off the edge frozen in time, although they still look like wet paint - add a distinctive ‘Surreal’ quality to the sculptural works.

Icon Glamour Resonance :

The Icon Glamour Resonance is a series of meditation on the power of the iconic moments in history of pop culture that continues to inspire us everyday. In this collection one single omnipotent image of an icon has been deconstructed and celebrated. The rhythmic repetition of this single iconic image heightens the resonant quality of the visual to inspire and evoke a strong response in the viewer. To capture the drama of that very moment a sense of movement has been created through repetition referencing a film strip or the frames of a moving image. The application of colors and dripping stripes add to this sense of motion and also brings an abstract quality by dissecting and focusing on parts of the compositions. The bold application of brushstrokes, spray paint, color splashes and thick paint channels the force through painterly expressive interpretation. In every resonance piece there are specific symbolic elements, such as the gold leafed butterflies in the Ali Resonance piece, that reference his famous quote “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

Icon Glamour Animalia:

The animal kingdom has been a significant source of inspiration to the collective human psyche since the dawn of civilization. The animal world’s relationship with humans has been well documented through the symbolism and metaphors in the history of art and literature. I am interested in exploring ‘animals as icons’ in the forms of powerful symbols and storytelling devices. The Icon Glamour Animalia series is a collection of stylized animal portraits that in combination with text based and painterly elements reflect on the life of animals parallel to humanity. The color drips interprets the animals into stripes and colors. The physical addition of these striking patterns dramatize the romanticized depiction of the animals by adding edgy attractive personalities. These color stripes brings an abstract quality by fragmenting the animal portraits into specific sections that highlighting the unique presence and forceful motion of these miraculous creatures that we can recognize so much of ourselves in. The color dripping bars appear to uncage the beauty of these marvellousbeasts and also comment on the humans manipulation of other animal species. At a time of endangered environmental future this celebration and appreciation of the animal kingdom communicates the significance of human animal harmony.

Icon Glow:

Icon Glow is an evolution of my obsession with incorporating mediums of mass culture as my material.

Neon signs defined the visual identity of the iconic American cityscape due to it’s extensive use in the commercial landscape. Today neon signs invoke the utopian nostalgia of the 1940s and 50s. Due to the longstanding relationship with consumerism the Neon sign represents a romance that alludes to a sense of identity, hope and affirmation. As a result the neon sign has a strong utopian symbolic potential that I expand in my ‘Icon Glow’ collection.

In this collection I combine the Neon and other luminous light elements directly on the pictorial surface adding an extra layer of significance and magnitude to my mixed media pieces that creates a dynamic experience for the viewer. I have always been fascinated with the role of luminous light and color to arouse mood as seen in the historic Impressionist paintings. The luminous lights in my ‘Icon Glow’ collection blends with mixed media painting, reflects and bleeds onto the larger space evoking a strong emotional affect.

Obstacles/Challenges

As a professional studio fine artist there is always a high level of competitiveness and challenge, Because in this industry windows of opportunities open up only for a short period of time and you have to make the most out of it. Also it is important not to get too satisfied with your success or too depressed by your failure. So it is important to constantly continue to reinvent your art and learn from what did work and what did not work and constantly keep exploring fresh expressions and new materials. For example the technique with the stripes and drips that is integral to my Icon Glamour collection was something I discovered from the failure of a previous project. Despite the failure I recognized the potential of the material and developed the technique further after a lot of tests and trying to perfect the application. After fine tuning a lot of aspects including the framing and the right choice of surface I was able to create a contrived art product of premium quality that justifies the price point.

'Chitrakar Samman Art Award 2021'

We are proud to present 'Chitrakar Samman Art Award 2021' to

Mr. Amitabh Sengupta (Kolkata W.B.) | Smt. Mahula Ghosh (New Delhi, Kolkata W.B.) | Mr. Sudipta Roy (Siliguri, W.B.) | Mr. Ashok Samajdar (Jalpaiguri, W.B.)

About Amitabh Sengupta

Amitabh Sengupta is a senior artist from Kolkata. Born in 1941, he spent his earlier years in north Bengal. After his studies in Jenkins School and Victoria College, in Cooch Behar, he left for Calcutta to study Painting at the Government College of Arts & Crafts, 1963. He received a French Government Scholarship to study Printmaking and Painting in Paris, 1966-69. After his studies he spent about five years in Madras and Delhi, subsequently went to Paris again in 1976. Eventually, he joined a university in Nigeria in 1977. During the period he received a Fellowship to study M.Ed. in the USA. Soon after he joined as the Head of Visual Arts at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, was a Consultant at UNESCO. He returned to India in 1988.He had exhibitions of his paintings in the USA, Europe, Nigeria, Far East, besides in India. He has a keen interest in folk arts and social studies. Hehas so far published three books from UK and India.

About Mahula Ghosh

Born in 1973 in Siliguri, West Bengal, has obtained her BFA and MFA in painting from Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati,Santiniketan, West Bengal, India between 1989-96. She is a recipient of National Scholarship in 1995, Junior & Senior fellowships from Govt. of India in 2000 and 2017. Mahula has been an artist-in residence at Kanoria Center for Arts, Ahmedabad in 1999. She was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant from New York in 2009. Mahula has held several solo shows such as in Chitrakoot Gallery, Kolkata in 2004, Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi in 2008, 2010, Lalit Kala Academi, New Delhi in 2013 and Arts & Aesthetics, New Delhi in 2015. Mahula has participated in several group shows in India and abroad and visited Amsterdam in 1999 and New York in 2006 on such occasions. She has been invited to many art camps including Lalit Kala Academy in 2011, Govt. Of Bihar in 2019, Govt. of Rajasthan 2020, Krabi Municipality,Thailand in 2016. Her public art project includes a collaborative installation at Hyatt Andaz, New Delhi, curated by rajeev sethy.2017,participated in a group exhibition curated by Myna mukherjee and Jaipur literary festival.2022,in New York.participated in an art workshop organised by Nirachartu curated by Sujit S.N. in thrissur Kerala. 2022.