Amitava Bhattacharya is a practicing artist and is widely recognized for his distinct style where traditional painting elements are incorporated with mixed media techniques. He obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Fine Arts from Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, Visva Bharati University, India. He later obtained a Chinese Government scholarship in 1993-94 and studied art and language in Beijing Language and Culture University. He took his initial training in ink brush painting under the guidance of veteran artist Li Min Ho.
Amitava is an active participant in group exhibitions, workshops, and conferences on art around the globe. He had his solo exhibitions in Beijing, Kunming, ICCR Calcutta, amongst other cities. His work is found in several private collections, as well as galleries throughout the world. After his graduation, Amitava also taught art in several institutions in India and was a guest lecturer at Government College of Art & Crafts in Calcutta teaching East Asian Art History.
Primarily Amitava was a printmaker and painter. Gradually he turned up to painting. His long stint in China as a student and later as a researcher and this experience made enormous influence to work on ink on absorbing rice paper. However, he developed his own style and technique of brush handling and splash ink method. In his later phase he was much engrossed in developing a sort of collage tempera –a mixed media technique applying rice papers over canvas and application of ink, glue, pigments and gouache. This kind of paintings were displayed in his last solo exhibition in 2014, Kalima – the Black Mother was held in Galeria Holm in Malmo, Sweden. The pieces of this exhibition evolved as a creative collaboration between poetry by Rabinarayan Dash and Amitava’s brushes. Join Amitava to understand Kalima in a contemporary, tangible interpretation of the themes surrounding mother goddess Kali.
