Bustling, bright, colourful inspiration
Illustrator Nina Chakrabarti is inspired by traditional techniques and colour to bring the vibrancy of India to life, in India, Incredible India – a visual tour of the sights, history and culture.
Can you introduce yourself and your work (prior to India, Incredible India).
Hello! I am Nina Chakrabarti, an illustrator who lives and works in Hastings on the south coast of England. I was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in India to a Bengali father and English mother. I moved to the UK in my teens, loved drawing and armed with youthful chutzpah and a large dollop of luck ended up at art college – first at Central Saint Martins and a few years later at the Royal College of Art.
I started out wanting to go into textiles or fashion – I am interested in both, but somehow slipped comfortably into the hermetic life of an illustrator. I like the way illustration can be applied in such a wide variety of ways – on ceramics, woven into textiles or printed onto fabric and wallpapers. Last year I worked on a collaboration with Swedish brand ARKET and produced a range of designs and textile patterns for children. My favourite piece was a many tentacled octopus that was woven into a towel.
Autumn-Winter 2022
What are you first memories of seeing, and feeling moved by illustrations and art – were you exposed to it when you were growing up in Calcutta? How did that experience of art change once you moved to the UK?
Growing up in Calcutta was inspiring because there was so much to look at. The city was teeming with life – bustling women with brightly coloured saris and men with oiled hair and fantastic moustaches, dusty streets clamouring with the din of trams, trains, buses and rickety rickshaws, a conglomeration of a thousand unfolding dramas and a visual feast on each corner. I loved the vivid colours, the hand drawn shop signs and painted advertising hoardings. Sometimes you’d see painters up a scaffold painting a film poster in sections. I would always stop to watch. There was a big Russian influence with art and culture in Calcutta, as West Bengal was a communist state and we had access to Russian books, plays and paintings.
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