Chitra Parvathy Merchant is a Bristol-based artist and printmaker whose work explores the forest ecologies of the Western Ghats in South India. After completing a B.A Degree in Psychology, Chitra left India to work for a year in an artist’s studio in West Africa. She came to England in the early nineties and completed a B.A (Hons) Degree in Illustration from U.W.E Bristol (’98) where she was first introduced to printmaking. Since 2001, Chitra has based herself at Spike Print Studio where she prints her editions, paints, exhibits, and works to commission on a regular basis.
Today, Chitra’s practice involves monoprinting, painting on old trial proofs, and sketchbook work, with pen and ink, papers, boards, canvas, earth based pigments, seaweed binders, acrylic paint, screenprinting, and sometimes even photoshop forging her work. For the past several years Chitra has been engaged with exploring the forest ecologies of the Western Ghats. Having grown up in this region, she travels back regularly and has a long standing connection to it which was passed down from her grandfather who was a forest officer in these parts. It is the ‘Devakads’ (Sacred Groves) found in these regions, and the stories and mythologies that surround them, that particularly inspire the artist. The resulting drawings, paintings, and prints seek to explore and highlight the biodiversity as well the inherent wild mystery underlying the existence of these spaces. Her works also aim to bring to light the the many environmental issues and threats facing this fast diminishing landscape.
Looking to the future, Chitra plans to continue exploring forest landscapes from all over the world, delving into their significance and conveying it through print, drawing, and painting.
@chitra_merchant
www.chitra.co.uk
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