Ptenopus
“Romance is always a place for surprises”, says Joyeeta. And indeed it is. Be it in life or art, romance blurs the edges of the familiar and unfamiliar. Her rendition of Gustav Klimt’s iconic work, ‘The Kiss’, does the same. She calls it ‘Amar Klimt’, Bengali for ‘My Klimt’. It is at once the same and completely new, quite typical of artworks that make their journey through space and time. It carries traces of the past, borne by shifting patterns, colours and designs on a landscape of desire. A fine artist and illustrator based in Kolkata, Joyeeta loves playing around with the classic and quirky.
Unlike Klimt’s figures who seem to be frozen on the edge of a verdant cliff, Joyeeta’s Bengali counterparts are caught in a dreamlike buoyancy. It’s her touch she says, depicting her people and her way of love. For those who find a hint of the uncertain and unknown in Klimt, Joyeeta’s might come across as a sweet surrender. But is it?
Matters of the mind are complex and daunting. And so, although bodies abound in her work, it is the mind that she is after. A fine artist and illustrator based in Kolkata, Joyeeta is drawn to observing people. She maps mindscapes. And she does so by conceiving of bodies as landscapes, equally vast and varied. Like every landscape has its tone, her bodies carry a sense of the intimate and sensual. Romance, in its numerous forms, is writ large over her work. She seamlessly blends an aesthetic of traditional Bengaliness and a modern art nouveau. In a culture where intimacy is still heavily censored, her figures seem to stride in style baring their soul and skin.
“Romance is a strange field”, she adds. “We want to be enough for everyone and art is my answer to that”. Intertwined bodies figure prominently in her work, like puzzles fitting in perfectly. There is sense of quaint harmony that pervades, like lyric poetry that we get used to.
Joyeeta did her B.F.A. i.e. her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship under Rabindra Bharati University. She runs her own studio, Studio Joyeeeta, along with her partner Prasenjit, a photography enthusiast.
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