Shoreline artist has solo show in Seattle

Installation view of Win over Destiny triptych at Virginia Inn
Photo by Shruti Ghatak

Shoreline artist Shruti Ghatak has a solo show at the Virginia Inn in Seattle, through February 26, 2018. Her works reflect the Indian mythology and folklore of her birthplace in India.

Shruti Ghatak was born and raised in West Bengal, India and received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from New York Studio School, NY and an MS in Organic Chemistry (specialized in Color technology) from Institute of Chemical technology, Mumbai, India. She has an interdisciplinary background and studied both Science and Art with the belief that crossing boundary sometimes open up new way of seeing.

Eternal
By Shruti Ghatak

Themes addressed in her works are the tension of personal struggle with alienation, social inequality, juxtaposition of folklore and mythology with contemporary culture and memory.

She exhibited widely in USA and India. Currently Shruti lives and works and teaches from her home studio in Shoreline.

About my work

In the pre-modern world, the identity and significance of mythology and folklore were communicated through prophecy and storytelling.

Today traditional archetypes are no longer familiar to everyone yet remain potent to individual imagination.

My recent works explore how those myths are reformed in response to our contemporary experience.

They also examine the potential of painting as a medium in contemporary culture that offers the possibility of mining and vitalizing ancient myths.

Up for the Challenge
By Shruti Ghatak

These works try to capture the essence of the sublime by the visual depiction of the experience of those folklore and myths I read in Bengali (one among many Indian languages) literature and poetry.

Although many artists and their works have had a lasting effect on my thoughts and on my work, but I have to admit that I was influenced by great many media beyond visual arts.

My works liberally draw inspiration from thirteenth and fourteenth century Bengali literature, poetry, music,Hindu mythology and folklore, as read and experienced them along my creative evolution.

The images I make often reflect the residual feelings those narratives, stripped of their stories, had left on me. I lace those feelings with my imagination.

Evidently, the intention of my works are not to retell the stories from where I drew the inspirations from, but to create the similar feelings within the heart of the viewer- the feelings that those old narratives have left me with.