The paintings by Chandra Bhattacharjee are languid and far from the city. Dusky men and women go about their daily lives, doing their tasks, in an otherworldly place unaffected by the chaos of city life. Bhattacharjee’s compositions are shaped by the rural and tribal communities he worked with, especially the Calcutta-based ‘Santhal’ tribe. His paintings have a textural aspect that is strikingly similar to the traditional mud walls covered in cow dung found in these areas. He received a gold medal from the Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, in 1986.