visit papia's new website: www.papiaghoshalonline.com

Collect Papia Ghoshal originals at:

GALLERY INDIAN IMAGES, KOLKATA

GALLERY GANGES, KOLKATA

EMAMI CHISEL ART, KOLKATA

ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, KOLKATA

KOLKATA ART GALLERY, KOLKATA

CHITRAKOOT ART GALLERY, KOLKATA

SURANANDAN BHARATI, KOLKATA

ICCR, DELHI

SHANTA ART GALLERY, DELHI

GALERIE MIRO, PRAGUE

BROOKS GALLERY, PRAGUE

LIVINGSTONE.CZ, BRNO

ARTIZANA.CZ, PRAGUE

SAATCHI GALLERY, LONDON

JOHN BLOXHOM GALLERY, LONDON,

THE NEHRU CENTRE, LONDON

THE MISCELLANY FOUNDATION, LONDON

SMB LTD, LONDON

 

RECENT :

 GALLERY 'INDIAN IMAGES' participated in ART PRAGUE 2013, Franz Kafka House Prague 

Artists: Papia Ghoshal, Prakash Karmakar, David Gibson & others

London Nehru Centre 2012:

 

 EAST & WEST-tribute to 150 YEARS of SWAMI VIVEKANANDA. Artists: Papia Ghoshal, Prakash Karmakar, Bijan Chowdhury, Harry Cardross, David Gibson & others. 

Papia Ghoshal Solo: at Nehru Centre London 'Borders & Shunya' July 2012

Exhibition of paintings  about the artist's recent journey over land betwen Europe & India via Turkey, (Van, Hakkari, Antakya etc) Syria, Afghanistan & Pakistan. 

JULY 10: Wild Smell of Lantana- LONDON LAUNCH of the 5th poetry book of artist Papia Ghoshal by Lord & Lady Sudeley, Lord Cardross, Lord Mereworth, Christopher Arkell & director Sangeeta Bahadur at the Nehru Centre. 

Also the Spring/Summer edition of The London Miscellany was launched in the presence of Lord Sudeley, the advisor, the publisher Mr Christopher Arkell & the International editor, Miss Papia Ghoshal of The London Miscellany at the Nehru Centre on June 10, 2012.

BANGLA ACADEMY, WEST BENGAL, INDIA-APRIL 1, 2012: INDIA release of ''Wild smell of lantana''- new poetry book of papia ghoshal 

 

RECENT EVENTS

 

 

GO KAMERA FEST (jan 12-15, 2012)- PAPIA GHOSHAL SHOW with paintings & speech by artist papia ghoshal on Sunday Januray 15, hosted by LIvingStone, Brno, Cz Rep.

 

RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S 150 YEAR ANNIVERSARY AWARD BY KARUVASH TO Papia Ghoshal on

December 27, 2011 at Jibanananda Sabhaghar, Bangla Acedamy, Kolkata.

 

EMBASSY OF INDIA, CZECH REPUBLIC organised

 

''Homage to Rabindranath Thakur through Bengal Art'' - a papia ghoshal solo exhibition at

Brno Kultural Centre (BKC), galerie 10, Czech Rep.

Exhibition closed on Monday, August 1, 2011

 

June 29 - European Atlantic Group's

 

Guest Speaker - Papia Ghoshal at The House of The Lords, followed by her Solo Exhibition of Paintings at The National Liberal Club, London.

 

 

May 17, 2011 -Papia Ghoshal was the guest artist in the BRITISH LIBRARY, London -on the event of : 

 

THE FLYING MAN, directed by Mukul Ahmed.

A stage Show on Tagore's poems & music.

Paintings of Papia Ghoshal were installed on the stage.

 

April 26- 30, 2011-group show of paintings & photographs from Bengal at London Nehru Centre-

bijan chowdhury, prakash karmakar, papia ghoshal, david gibson, ramkumar manna, yakub chitrakar, ashoknath dey, shantanu chakraborty & marina wright

 

BENGAL FESTIVAL's on the event of Tagore's 125th anniversary was organised & co sponsored by THE LONDON MISCELLANY, LONDON & curated by ''gallery indian images'', kolkata

 

SOLO EXHIBITION OF papia ghoshal titled ''tantra, the void'' at london, nehru centre from April 18- April 21, 2011.

opening ceremony was graced by Lord & Lady Sudeley, Lord Cardross, Monika Kapila Mohta (director Nehru Centre), Christopher Arkell, Jack Pizzey, Dr Arnold Harvey & many more prominent personalities.

 

 

recnt past  - MARCH 29, 2011, POTALA, PRAGUE:

 

CONCERT -

 

PAPIA & BAISHNAV TANTRA

 

( indian meditational songs by papia & group)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review: THE TELEGRAPH, kolkata, India Tuesday, March 01, 2005   Corporeal art

A uniquely daring artist who specialises in the aesthetic representation of human forms, Papia Ghoshal comes across as a modern revivalist who triumphantly carries forward the illustrious tradition of the Renaissance masters. Forbidden Dreams, the ongoing exhibition of her paintings, appears as a series of observations of the human body, exploring its sexual grace, strength and sadness. Though pursuing the Western tradition of Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael, her nude studies present a surprisingly fresh view of masculinity. Ghoshal?s structural visualisations of the female form depend on more than spatial dimension and proportion to create in them an aura of power, vitality and spirituality. The sheer intensity of insight that she puts into developing her characters makes one certain that she paints not just what she sees but what she feels of the human body. Nevertheless, the strange, almost magical, transformation of her human forms goes beyond anthropology to enter the realm of poetic metamorphosis. Event: An exhibition of paintings by Papia Ghoshal When: Till March 4, 3 pm - 8 pm Where: Chitrakoot Art Gallery, 55 Gariahat Road

 

My new series of paintings, Flow, are a development of work done for my collection of poems, Days of Menstruation, published in January 2003.

The poems which eventually formed that collection were the result of a long meditation on the meaning of femininity. I drew, of course, on my own experience as a woman, whose flow of blood islands her each month from the males around her. Yet my experience and the clarity it brought to the way I saw myself in my world, was also the experience of every woman born, and of no man whatsoever.

A woman’s menstrual flow is so easily seen as a river of separation by men. They have traditionally interpreted it as a sign of our weakness, our uncleanliness, our humiliation. For that we have suffered purdah, and forms of imprisonment not only physical but mental. Only very recently, in some parts of the world, have we begun to break out of such confinement, but our liberation has, in truth, scarcely begun. Menstruation is a word which can still, even in the year 2009, infuriate and disgust men who are considered by society at large as ‘liberal’, ‘sensitive’, ‘educated’. Through images which the menstrual blood inspired and which it opened for me – because of its power, its pain, its refreshing flow – I tried in the poems of Days of Menstruation to offer for any woman reader an escape out of the mental cage in which we have all for so long been locked, and also to show all readers, female or male, the transformative qualities that I felt are present in the menstrual cycle.

The Flow series takes the ideas from my poems and combines them with the paintings I have been making in the last seven years. Each of these new works is painted using my own menstrual blood. I have thus drawn from my very core images of the world around me. An art critic once described my artistic approach as ‘transcreative’. I think this is an apt word to apply to my new process. I am transcreating my inner self, at its most intensely female, into the sinews and muscles and rhythms of the world we all share, thus feminising it beyond the interpretive reach of the male. I have also shaped penises from my own blood, with a deliberate intention of imposing my creative dominance on this most widely worshipped symbol of male authority.

I believe one or two female artists have already worked in the medium of their menstrual blood before; but I think I am the first to mix into my blood – in a further exploration of the transcreative processes which so fascinate and empower me – the flow of male semen ejaculated specifically at my behest for me to paint with. That union of blood and semen is for me one of the few that approaches real gender equality.

I offer my Flow paintings to women everywhere – as tokens of our determination to gain a true and permanent liberation from our age-old confines.

Papia Ghoshal

Ó Papia Ghoshal February 2003

I have been an admirer of Papia's work ever since they were first exhibited at the Nehru Centre in London in 2005 when I was its Director. Apart from her natural talent as a very skilled painter, she is also deeply immersed in the mythologies of her soil. The result is that her paintings have a very powerful message. I am not an art critic, but I have been sufficiently exposed to the best in art to say that in Papia we have an exceptionally gifted artist and a human being who has the courage of her convictions. I have little doubt that she will be recognised in due course as one of India's finest artists.

 

PAVAN K VARMA

 

DIRECTOR GENERAL, ICCR, NEW DELHI.

FORMER DIRECTOR, THE NEHRU CENTRE LONDON.

Indian Ambassador to Bhutan

 

The human body is a temple; it is always, also, a prism through which the different shades of society can be perceived. In  Papia’s work one can sense the twin aspects of devotion and investigation, as exemplified by the creative interpretation of  the male anatomy. The vibrant use of colour as also the creative distortion of the human form endows the paintings on view with a mesmeric quality.

 

These are strange forms, weird even, and Papia is unashamed to flaunt their singularity, combining and coalescing their inherent shock value with a quietly philosophic exploration into the transience of a fragile, post modern world. On occasion, geometric balance and a meticulous attention to detail has dovetailed into a more fundamental exposition of the nature of human existence.

 

Papia’s paintings have an experimental quality; at the same time, there are some universal values which she upholds, preferring to combine traditional motifs with a creative interpretation of sexuality. In effect the provocative nature of the works on view leads to a kind of cerebration, a rare phenomenon in today’s world.

 

In everything, Papia shows the courage to invent and interpret without becoming a slave to tradition.

 

ASHOKE VISHWANATHAN

Filmmaker.          

The Explosive Paintings of Papia Ghoshal

 

A revolution has been under way for quite sometime- a revolution in human relationships, attitude, moral, institution, perspective. It has yet to find sufficient expression in the organised life of societies and nations. However, its presence and power may already be felt in music, literature and Fine Arts, which are the antennae of the race.

I sense in Papia Ghoshal's  paintings vivid intimations of the revolution. They are a total rejection of the patriarchal or male-dominated complex of taboo-ridden cultures and civilizations that have in force for several millenia.She rejects all taboos and imparts to her visualisation of sexuality on canvas the power and pain, an ecstacy and agony, the thrust and the tortuousness, the mystery and the ''bad faith'', that this primal desire of our existence contains inalienably within itself.

Papia seems to have chosen as her signature KALI, the fearless nude goddess of freedom and power, the timeless dancer whose wild looks rule the winds of heaven, at whose feet lies her consort SIVA who, in the patriarchal scheme, was the omnipotent Lord of all space and time, the quick and the dead. Shorm of his reveals its amazing resources to the equally resourceful and dynamic Yoni. Papia has worked on this explosive theme with a rare sensitivity and a remarkable command over line and colour. I admire her daring nearly as much as technical skill and evocative power.

 

Lt Dr. Sibnarayan Ray

 

Former chairman, Indian Studies, Melbourne UniversityFormer Director, Rabindra-Bhavan, Visvabharati University Emeritus Fellow on LiteratureDept. of Culture, Govt. of IndiaFormer Chairman, Raja Rammohan Roy Library FoundationFounder-Editor, Jignasa, a journal of ideas and enquirySenior research Fellow, Indian Council of Historical Research.

 

There are paintings I delight to see again and again in the museums, there are paintings I wish I could have on my walls at home and there are paintings that live in my heart. These last are by Papia Ghoshal, a uniquely daring and confident Indian artist. Display of her recent works were built around her series ''world of forbidden dreams'', a sequence of meditations on the male body, exploring its sexual grace, power and sadness. There is nothing new or surprising in representing the male nude, in the western tradition, after Phidius Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Raphael or Hockley, it is`extra ordinarily hard to present a fresh view of maleness. But this is exactly what Papia has done by painting, what she feels of amale bosy not what she sees.

Her intensity of insight, its rigour, its purity- shows in the transformation she makes of the male form.

Transformations are the main springs of Papia's vision. The viewer too is transformed by their sheer energy and wilness. I have seen nothing quite like this before. Papia has, in effect visualised the poetry of metamorphosisusing the male boy as her magic wand. She is in a line of direct descent from Ovid, the great poet of Augustan Rome. Papia is imbued with same transformative genius. Once seen her metamorphosis continue in the mind and I for one , am priviledged to have her works not just on my walls but also rooted firmly in my heart....

 

Christopher Arkell

 

Poet, Publisher & Editor in Chief

The London Miscellany