Jacqueline Chanda
Jacqueline Chanda was born in Detroit, Michigan. Having no other visual artists in the family, Chanda had to develop her own sense of what it meant to be a visual artist. She remembers studying about famous artists, such as Thomas Gainsborough and Pablo Picasso in the fourth grade. This knowledge helped fuel her interest in painting. She even went as far as replicating Blue Boy, a painting by Thomas Gainsborough.
Her parents moved to California to a small suburban area just outside of Pasadena. It was during this time that her interest and excitement for the visual arts grew. During high school, art kept Chanda focused and centered. She won scholarships to the Art Center in Los Angeles and acquired other awards and honors for her drawings and paintings.
After high school Chanda attended UCLA where she majored in painting and drawing. Upon finishing her undergraduate studies she went to Paris, France where she continued her art studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, the Académie de Port Royal and graduate studies at the Sorbonne University. At the Sorbonne she completed a MA in art education and a Ph.D. in Plastic Arts Theory and Aesthetics.
Fast-forward with her through marriage, a daughter, years of teaching and doing research in art education pedagogical practices at several universities, we find her doing what she always wanted to do, paint full time.
Since focusing full time on her painting practice, Chanda has participated in several residencies, and made, exhibited and sold her artwork. Her work has been accepted to numerous juried local and national shows and she has won several awards: two 1st place, a 2nd and a 3rd place awards, a crystal merit award in an international exhibition, and two honorable mentions. She and her work have been featured in the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, the Sonoran Arts Network, art review, Lovin’ Life After 50 magazine, the Tubac Gallery guide, the Tucson/Marana Daily News, Desert Leaf: The Catalina foothills Magazine, and Southwest Art Magazine. In addition, she has appeared on PBS Television “Spot on the Arts” and KGUN 9 T.V.
Chanda belongs to a number of local and national art organizations, such as Sonoran Plein Air Painters, the Oil Painters of America, and the Portrait Society of America. For Chanda, every painting is an adventure of finding ways to record moments in time in the life of people and nature.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am drawn to representational genre scenes, intimate scenes of everyday life, of ordinary people at work or play. I love to capture people in the moment, in candid unscripted poses with unguarded expressions. The intent is to create visual metaphors of narrative moments in ongoing stories of life.
I plan my paintings based on thematic or conceptual ideas. Once I decide on a series, I create drawings and/or look for visual references that will aid me in composing and executing a set of paintings based on the theme or concept I have selected.
Observing people is a frequent practice of mine. I am most interested in the thoughtful attitudes that are conveyed by the human form, whether body gestures or facial expressions and the light found in the interior or exterior spaces in which the people are found.
As a representational oil painter, I use suggestive, painterly, loose brushstrokes. The compositions often use accidental cropping, as in a snapshot. The intent is to create a natural, dynamic, or authentic environment that draws in the viewer.
Capturing the expressive character connected to a scene of people can be quite elusive. But it is that challenge that drives my work and gives me great satisfaction when I succeed. My hope is that my paintings encourage the viewer to connect with life on a different level and see themselves and everyone as an integral part of the human experience.