CHARUDATTA RAM PRABHUDESAI

Charudatta Ram Prabhudesai

The break of almost 20 years reflected in my work when I began painting again in 2007.
It was difficult to restart, especially after a long period of virtual abnegation of art-world.
When I began again, I naively expected to find the world frozen in time where I’d left it. Cosseted
in the ashram in Pondicherry from too much exposure to ‘outside’ world, I found to my dismay
that the world had moved on! I woke up into a world which raced at a frenzied pace. The blitz of
Computer age, too, was at its alienating best.
I needed to adapt to forces which determined my survival in an almost Utopia seeking Auroville.
I found myself torn between the lofty, idealistic ways of living
and getting tarnished by the mundane muddle of the so called ‘ordinary life’.
Art has once again become an important necessity for me.

This dichotomy I have sought to make the bases of my artistic reflection.
It has (so far) prompted an imagery, which may
be at odds with the much fussed over thing called ‘style’.
I enjoy drawing & painting heads a lot. They are male heads mostly, which suffer a great deal of
Distortion at my hand. The conflict with new realities necessitates a point of reference from the past
for me to make the first mark on the canvas. At times I work with layers of pigment and other
times work impasto, in an effort to make an image ‘work’ for me.

For all practical reasons, acrylics has become my preferred medium, although
oils are far more resilient according to me.

My earlier work was habitual: from a bad habit developed in The Goa College of Art,
with its limited curriculum based on the J.J. school model (studies of heads and portraiture and
studio painting – a hangover from the old British academies.) Having imbibed a habit, it was difficult
to break it. It tied me to a narrow sense of reality. I had to struggle against these odds in order
to liberate the artist within. I began, around 2007, a series of experiments drawing with my eyes
closed. It was quite liberating. It allowed me to include elements of spontaneity in design, leaving the
narrative ( Baroda hangover) to take care of itself.

My affair with the flitting, ephemeral nature of things- from my earlier pre statehood Goa imagery
Has evolved. I see the pointlessness of insistence on figurative when abstraction can more than well substitute
Emotion behind the figurative image-making. Serendipity, chance or ‘the accidental’ are more
rewarding than meticulous labouring at real figures in real space.


I was born in1963 in Panjim, Goa. I moved to Baroda in 1986 to pursue a Masters in painting
after my Bachelors in painting from the Goa College of Art, Miramar.
In the August of 1990 I arrived in Pondicherry and then to Auroville, where I now live with Paula Caesar & our
son Mir.

Charudatta Ram Prabhudesai,
January 2011.

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Born in 1963/ Panjim-Goa.

Academics:
Goa - of Art/ Miramar –
(BFA 1984-5.)
M.S University, Baroda/
(MFA- 1987-88)
Best student of the year - Miramar: 1982, 83, 84.
Awarded merit scholarship and prizes between 1982 -1986.

• Participated in workshops and group shows till 1995.
• Participated in regional annual shows in Goa, Ahmedabad, Baroda,
Pondicherry, Chennai & Bangalore from 1983 -1995.
• Participated in workshops
• Solo: Drawings in Bharat Nivas, Auroville 2007.
• Solo: Drawings and caricatures, in Auroville 2009.
• Participated in Ruchika’s 1oth annual, 2009-10.
• Participated in ‘The viewing room show ‘ASYCO’, 2009-10
• Works in individual collection in India and abroad.
• Participated in “works on paper”, Tamarind art gallery, Baga. 2010
• Illustrated books for children and written stories for children.
• Taught art.
• Is a free lance Caricaturist.

Theatre and other: Acted in several plays. Has done Moliere, Comedia de l’arte, Shakespeare and
Tagore besides many other plays of known and not so known paywrites.
Has recorded songs for children in Sanskrit.

Lives in Auroville Township, Tamil Nadu, South India