Title: "Enthrallment", 1996. 19.5 Inches X 25.5 Inches.Multi media on and being Plexiglas. Private Collection, Lisbon, Portugal. Image copyright © 2007 Chitra Ramanathan and cannot be reproduced anywhere without prior written permission.

Artist/educator Chitra Ramanathan's current series of predominantly large-scale mixed media paintings portray the mental emotion of happiness as a visual entity through intense colors and mixed media textures. They are inspired by short-lived garden blooms and constantly changing seasons in nature, characteristics that attribute to the ephemeral, fleeting and enticingly beautiful happiness' "formless form": a phrase she has coined to describe her concept. The hint of circles almost always present in her works signify the cycle of human life: trying times followed by happy phases in a positive sense, and of life and rebirth influenced by her roots from India.

Born in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India and raised in Kolkatta, West Bengal, and Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Chitra Ramanathan began drawing and painting at the age of four and won prizes mostly in the form of sliver trophies in art competitions throughout her childhood. She recalls being the recipient of prizes through competitions sponsored by corporate organizations Hindustan UniLever, Ltd's nationally advertised newspaper coloring contest entry, that was judged by eminent Indian Artists at the age of ten, and one of her paintings being showcased at the Birla Academy of Arts and Culture Kolkatta, India, when she received a silver trophy bearing her name during the same years. She went on to earn a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from Stella Maris College, Chennai, India.

After migrating to the States,she continued her education, and received her Bachelors in Painting with honors in 1993, and a M.B.A in Art Museum Administration both degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In the meantime, her paintings and three dimensional pieces were already being featured in solo and group exhibitions on Broadway, New York, following a solo exhibition of her paintings at the ARC Gallery/Educational Foundation in Chicago, Illinois in 1994. Several of those exhibitions attracted rave reviews.

Since 1999, Chitra's work has been acquired by corporate and public enterprises, as well as through contacts by individual collectors, websites featuring her paintings, educational institutions and business enterprises around the United States and in Europe.

Philanthropy:

Chitra has donated her work to social causes/charities such as the Madam C.J. Walker Art Center's Eightieth Birthday Charity drive in 2006, and the Indiana Hospice Program. Immediate plans include donating teaching art time at the Abbie Hunt Bryce Home for the terminally ill at Indianapolis.