FEATURED ARTIST: Raktim Chatterjee — An Indian Watercolourist Who Paints the Body as Emotional State
ART & DAY is delighted to introduce a painter of rare psychological intensity from West Bengal, India.
Raktim Chatterjee.
The bodies in his paintings do not simply represent human figures. Distorted and hybrid, placed within ordinary domestic and social spaces, they function as psychological states — shaped by desire, fear, intimacy, consumption, and survival. Emotional exhaustion, erosion of empathy, the effort of staying intact in a fractured world: all of this is present in the layered, abraded surface of his watercolours.
Transparent watercolour and deliberate abrasion
Raktim's process involves building up multiple layers of transparent watercolour — and then deliberately scraping back into the surface (abrasion). The result is a texture that sits in the threshold between completion and collapse: the painting as something always in the process of becoming, never simply finished. It is this quality of rawness and instability that makes his works so immediate.
Raktim Chatterjee | 《Another Day》 — ¥300,000
Glenfiddich Artist Program and a sustained exhibition record
Raktim studied at the Indian College of Art & Draftsmanship, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (BVA, 2004), and has exhibited extensively at major Indian institutions including the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata and the Birla Academy of Art & Culture. In 2012, he participated in the Glenfiddich Artist Program in Scotland — an international artist residency of considerable prestige, open only to a small number of artists worldwide each year.
Raktim Chatterjee | 《Beauty》 — ¥300,000
Raktim Chatterjee | 《Portrait of a Noble Lady》 — ¥300,000
Six original watercolour works
ART & DAY presents six original works spanning 2016 to 2026: Another Day, Beauty, Portrait of a Noble Lady, Preparation, The Party, and the most recent work, The Torso and the Heads (119.4 × 73.7 cm). All are one-of-a-kind originals in watercolour or mixed media on paper.
Raktim Chatterjee | 《Preparation》 — ¥375,000
Six original works by Raktim Chatterjee are now available at ART & DAY. Worldwide DDP shipping included.