Untitled

Artist: Jogen Chowdhury
Medium: Charcoal & Dry Pastel on Brown Paper mounted on Board
Size: 10 × 8 inches (25.4 × 20.32 cm)
Year: 2021

This compelling work by Jogen Chowdhury, executed in charcoal and dry pastel on brown paper mounted on board, exemplifies the artist’s unique visual language, one that bridges traditional Indian forms with a distinctly modern sensibility. The central subject of the composition, a stylized vase, is not merely an object of still life but a site of formal exploration and symbolic resonance. Chowdhury’s signature linearity, combined with textured coloration, imbues the drawing with a sculptural gravitas that transcends the limitations of two-dimensional media.

Rendered in muted brownish-grays, the vase occupies the central plane of the composition, its bulbous form punctuated by a series of decorative horizontal bands. These bands are densely worked with abstract, repetitive motifs, triangles, zigzags, and linear patterns, reminiscent of tribal pottery or indigenous textile design. While these motifs borrow from folk and craft traditions, they are executed with an assured graphic sensibility, reflecting Chowdhury’s modernist roots and his lifelong engagement with the semiotic potential of ornamentation.

The curved handles or spouts that extend from the vase’s shoulders evoke both function and fantasy. They twist and coil in an exaggerated, almost surreal manner, reinforcing the artist’s interest in distortion and exaggeration as expressive tools. This manipulation of form reflects Chowdhury’s broader aesthetic trajectory, where everyday objects and figures are often transformed through stylization to suggest deeper psychological or cultural meanings. Set against a deep, reddish-orange background, the vase is visually elevated, its form starkly outlined and dramatized by the chromatic contrast. The reddish ground, a recurring tonal choice in Chowdhury’s pastel and ink works, serves not only as a compositional backdrop but as a narrative field, one that evokes both earthiness and warmth. A lighter, golden-toned border delicately frames the image, lending it a sense of containment and ceremonial importance, as if the object is both real and iconic.

The presence of a simple script-like mark in the top left corner, possibly a signature or a symbolic glyph, reinforces the work’s interweaving of visual and linguistic codes, an aspect often found in Chowdhury’s drawings. His use of brown paper further contributes to the work’s tactile and archival quality, echoing the materiality of indigenous art forms while grounding the work in the idiom of the handmade. In this drawing, Jogen Chowdhury reimagines a humble vessel as a carrier of cultural memory and artistic invention, transforming it into an object of meditative beauty and layered symbolism.