Born in 1981 in New Delhi, Chetnaa completed her Master’s degree in Painting from the College of Art, New Delhi. Her geometric abstractions are drawn largely from the landscape and architecture of her city : keen observations of the metropolis translated into an eloquent schematic of lines and markers. Initiated as symmetrical arrangements, Chetnaa’s work reveals the need to deconstruct the order she once sought, so as to build a new geometric logic that feeds her minimalist aesthetic.
Chetnaa recently presented a solo focus booth, ‘Sacred Square : 101 Meditations on Paper’, at the India Art Fair 2022 with Anupa Mehta Arts & Advisory and has had four solo shows, with a special online & a physical solo presentation ‘P = 4L, {Deconstructing Square Space}’ & has participated in many exhibitions in India and around the world. She has been a part of Inner Life of Things : Around Anatomies & Armatures, Group show, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Uttar Pradesh, 2022; State of Mind: Between Dysphoria & Hope, group show, curated by Sayali Mundye, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2021; Abstract Notations, online group show, curated by Jesal Thacker, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2020 ; All is Not Lost 20:20:20, group show curated by Saloni Doshi at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2020; A Walk Across Grids, an online group show, with Akara Art, Mumbai, 2020; Imprint : After, group show curated by Sitara Chowfla for the Pulp Society, New Delhi 2020; Artist in Residence at the India Art Fair 2020; Of Paper, group show at Gallery Art Motif, New Delhi, 2019; Breaking Ground, 1st Indian Ceramic Trienale, JKK, Jaipur, 2018; Papier, a group show at Art Positive Gallery, New Delhi, 2018; Everything Is Black & White, at Palette art Gallery, New Delhi , 2018; Condition Reports, group show, curated by Ranjit Hoskote, Art District XIII, New Delhi, 2017.
The artist has received AIFACS, All India Drawing Award; Emerging Artist of the Year by Glenfiddich and Best College Art Award; Special mention Award, SCZCC, Nagpur.
My practice revolves around balancing the nuances of white of the paper and black, that of the ink. Plotted, dotted and drawn, stitched, foiled and punctured, invariably on paper, the journey of my moving point traverses sometimes linearly, sometimes converging into others. My quest is to abstain from demonstrating emotions and rather in finding harmony in the balance of positive and negative space, in the manipulation of lines, grids and colour.
1 try to manifest the daily monotony of getting from one point to another through my drawings or the monochrome works, I often indulge in, by tracing the movement of a single point. It is a personal journey: pemaps the point represents me moving as I reflection the city’s architecture, mentally deconstructing it into horizontals and verticals Each piece reveals a harmonious order in the layering of maps, lines and angles – drawn on and threaded through the paper or just layered with paper on paper, resilient and tenuous all at once.
I have managed to abstract the cityscape to a form of minimal geometric purity that could be visually consumed in an instant.
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