Jaya Ganguly

(b. 1958)

Born in 1958 to a conservative middle class Bengali family, Jaya Ganguly graduated from the Indian College of Arts, Calcutta. She held her first solo exhibition in the Academy of Fine Arts Calcutta, 1982.

In her artworks, Jaya looks at social behavior and the situation of humanity, reacting to social pressures and prejudices. Looking for balance, she reviews the historical dilemma of human progress and the resulting effect on nature and the environment. Though she believes nothing is absolute or final, Jaya has an eye for seeing subjects against the larger backdrop of the general human condition. This landscape remains the same while the multi-faceted subject may change within it. Jaya focuses on the figure in her artwork, giving an intimate portrait of the conflict within. “In my early paintings the Mother Kali would appear sometimes as a person or the most ordinary women would resemble HER – and even parody HER divine gestures” says Jaya.“……..the movement is away from emotional chaos to a balanced cosmos. Colours can still splinter, group and bond as sub-particles to create shapes that finally assume significance of form” feels Jaya. 

Jaya has received many positive reviews in Calcutta, Bombay, and New Delhi newspapers and art journals. Hailed by The Illustrated Weekly of India as one of the top ten young contemporary painters in India and as the most promising artist in Bengal of the modern era, her works can be found in the collection of the Consulate of the Netherlands, New Delhi, and many other private collections in India and abroad.