Arundel Contemporary

Arundel Art Room, in West Sussex, is currently playing host to New York-based artist and designer Indrajeet Chandrachud and his collection of minimalist, surreal paintings. Chandrachud lives and works in New York City, where he is an advertising art director. He completed his BFA in Pune, India, before moving to Syracuse, New York, to pursue a Master’s degree, specialising in Advertising Design. He travels back to his hometown in India each year and his work is based on the architecture he encounters on his travels, through the USA, to Latin America, Europe and India. During his transitions from city to city, the differing and coinciding urban landscapes become a subject of observation and fascination for him. His paintings are not mere stylistic renditions of reality, but a transformation of the subject into minimalistic objective artwork. His main concern is with the form
and the brightly-coloured spaces within the canvas. The buildings in his paintings are certainly inhabited, but he depicts them without any human presence. It feels like the viewer is looking at a coincidental, empty moment where the buildings and structures have taken centre stage. Chandrachud gives life to the structures themselves. Timeworn roofs of old buildings, long corridors of churches, Mexican dwellings, iconic New York water tanks, and countryside Indian houses – he has a unique way of depicting architectural objects and transforming them into beautiful and enigmatic paintings. Chandrachud has a passion for the exploration of new places, and is certain to bring back his impressions in the form of photographs and rapid sketches. Working from his Queens-based studio, he renders the objects unique to each location in his minimal style, converting them into a different reality altogether. Debu Barve.

Art of England. October 2012. Issue 95