He is an executor of figural constructors in the best of the realistic tradition. His art is replete with representational innuendoes, albeit with motifs and imagery that are sometimes overly decorative, if not romantic. Many other painters of his time also show these traits. What distinguishes Chandra Bhattacharya is his ability to posit the human form not as the sole focal point in his visual space, but rather as more of a mute celebration of raw life in which inanimate shapes and forms also play an intricate role.

The young artist has invented ways of imbuing his world of men and women with an aura of enigma. And he accomplishes all this with relative ease and without recourse to technical jugglery in his current exhibition at the Chemould Art Gallery.

Bhattacharya depicts hu-man postures, drawing from people he sees around himself. Yet, though their expression is strangely devoid of pessimism or despondency, they are endowed with a wishful look in their meta-phorically caged existence. Falling leaves and petals often surround the artist?s freer-looking human configurations. Here also is a touch of ambivalence as he keeps us guessing whether the falling leaves are symbolic of the impermanence of life, or of an end that is pregnant with possibilities of new life.