Untitled (Woman with Yellow Hair)

Primarily concerned with figuration, Jogen Chowdhury uses the corporeality of his figures to focus on society’s ills, rarely to celebrate pure beauty of the human form. In this uncommon ink and pastel work, the Santiniketan-based artist inserts figuration in what is primarily a still-life, the woman herself looking as perfectly decorated—and still—in her magnificence as the objects around her in the sumptuous chamber. This seems to be an oblique comment on the designer yet moribund lives that thrive inside seemingly perfect environs.