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Radha Chatterjee
Radha Chatterjee, a co-owner, is the newest artist of the Artists’ Showplace Gallery team. She has won us over with her enthusiasm for art and her diverse artistic interests. She creates two-dimensional paintings in watercolors, oils, acrylics and mixed media, as well as ceramic reliefs and stoneware sculptures.
Radha was exposed early to art. Her father fired her imagination when she was only seven. As her most ardent critic and art instructor, he gave her a glimpse of the thrill of watercolor. She recalls the excitement of watching for the first time, the magic of two colors on damp paper, race toward each other, collide and then become an impossibly exquisite new color. She was hooked!
In high school Radha Chatterjee took art lessons from an artist in India. However, when it came to choosing a career, she chose to major in Biology. It seemed a sensible choice and insurance for her future – a career that would someday help to pay her bills. When she left India to make her home in the United States, Radha seized the opportunity to return to her first love of art. She studied graphic and web design. The process of reducing and simplifying forms, which is the essence of effective graphic design, is a continual source of satisfaction for her.
She still works as a freelance graphic designer, when she is not involved in creating her more imaginative paintings and ceramic work. Over the years, Radha studied with nationally renowned artists, like Gerald Brommer, Steven Quiller, Jane Jones, Sandi D’ Alessandro, Dale Laitinen and Mark Mehaffey. They enhanced her understanding of the mechanics of art and helped her acquire skills in multiple media.
Radha shares the wealth of her knowledge and skill with young students. She teaches art at a school that she founded in 2001. It now boasts 30 students of all ages, who have won awards and experienced their own successes under her tutelage.
They are trained in drawing and painting in watercolor, acrylic, collage, mixed media, pastel, charcoal, and oil. Her students have won district art competitions, to state level PTA Reflections in Visual art. Every year in August she organizes a Students’ Art show at the Plano Public library. In 2005, she joined a group of nine artists to form Just Art. They paint and critique their art together, seeking to collectively grow in their creative pursuits. “Art is a window to harmony and color. I try to keep the pigments fresh, but simultaneously experiment with value and composition. Making art is a sort of catharsis, and it brings me joy and tranquility.”
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