Full Name Kurchi Dasgupta Nationality Indian | Name Kurchi Dasgupta Period Abstract art | |
Born 1974 Kolkata, West Bengal, India Known for Visual artist, writer, translator Movement Abstract art, Miniature art, oil painting | ||
Kurchi Dasgupta (born 1974 in Kolkata, West Bengal) is an Indian painter, writer and translator. She currently lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, where, in April 2008, she was witness to the abolition of the monarchy which had reigned in Nepal for 240 years and the transformation of Nepal into a federal democratic state.
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Background
Dasgupta gained a diploma in Commercial art in 1994 and earned a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata in 1998. She was the chief executive officer of the Society For the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Films (The Ray Society) for two years until 2006. She was also the head of Lotus Print publishing house for three years. She shares her time between Kathmandu and Kolkata at the moment, with her son and husband.
Artistic work
As an artist she specialises in abstracts and miniatures using gouache. She is currently focussing on bringing the two disparate, yet similar, worlds of film and painting together, through a series in oil on canvas, on world cinema to be shown in London in September 2008. Her painting was selected by Nokia out of thousands of paintings and was showcased on their official website in 2007. She has also illustrated the Bengali translation by Maitreyi Nag of the 1984 Daniel Pennac novel, L'Oeil Du Loup.
She says of her work, "I try and recontextualise everyday reality by drilling into the very core of the 'sub' or 'Ur' conscious. My aim is to provide the viewer/participator with a new set of tools with which s/he can interpret the world around. And within."
Writings
Her major published works include The Death Trap (translated from Bengali) of Sunil Gangopadhyay, published in 2003.Possessions is a translation of the award-winning Bengali novel by Shyamal Gangopadhyay, Kuberer Bishoy ashoy, was published in 2007. Currently, she is translating the Sandipan Chattopadhyay novel, Ami o Banabihari.
She has also published a number of short stories and written screenplays that have been made into films.
Selected exhibitions
She had a Group Show (major) at Bricklane Gallery, London in July 2007. In September 2008 she hade a one-week exhibition of her paintings at the M.P. Birla Millennium Art Gallery, London. A third solo, at the prestigious Siddhartha Art Gallery at Kathmandu, in January 2010, showcased her current engagement with The Mahabharata. "The Mahabharata: An Impression" received wide critical acclaim and will be reworked to be shown as "Bishoy Mahabharat" at The Nehru Centre, London in September 2010.