Emerging artist Priyanka Bhattacharjee's first solo Rutted Terrain is on display in Kolkata

"Rutted Terrain" emerged from my long-standing engagement with land as a physical entity and a vessel of memory—an archive that bears the weight of time, migration, trade, and identity.

Through this series, I interrogate land’s role as more than physical geography. It is a repository of memory, a site of contested belonging, and a reflection of our entangled relationship with place. In navigating its shifting topography, I attempt to uncover the unseen, the forgotten, and the impermanent—tracing the echoes of what was, and what remains.

The title Rutted Terrain embodies this duality. “Rutted” speaks to the physical and metaphorical impressions left behind—marks of movement, of displacement, of histories embedded within the earth. It suggests both the violence of extraction and the quiet resilience of terrain, which refuses to remain unchanged. Ultimately, Rutted Terrain is an invitation to reconsider how we engage with land.

Knowing that Rutted Terrain is my first solo exhibition brings a mix of emotions—excitement, anticipation, and, inevitably, a sense of vulnerability. At the same time, stepping into the space of a solo exhibition carries its own weight—it’s a moment of exposure, where my artistic voice stands independently, open to interpretation, discourse, and critique. There’s excitement in seeing the works come together as a cohesive dialogue, but there’s also a quiet anxiety in knowing that this is the first time my practice will stand on its own, without the framing of a group show. More than anything, I hope Rutted Terrain resonates with others and sparks conversations about land, memory, and belonging.

Materiality is fundamental to my practice, not just as a technical choice but as an extension of concept and meaning. I deliberately work with archival papers paired with acrylic as my primary medium, because both materials possess unique qualities that align with my exploration of land, memory, and transformation.

The systematic approach I developed through science allows me to dissect and understand the intrinsic properties of materials—insights that directly inform my choice of archival paper and acrylic. It has trained me to approach materials not just as passive surfaces but as active participants in the work.  Archival paper, for example, isn’t just a ground for me; it’s a vessel of memory, its fiber absorbing pigment unevenly, much like how land holds onto traces of time. Acrylic, on the other hand, allows for both immediacy and layering, mirroring the way landscapes evolve—built up, eroded, and reshaped.

I was fortunate to grow up in an environment where creativity was not taught but lived. My father’s studio was my first canvas, a space where imagination was given precedence over technique. As a child, I wasn’t instructed to replicate still lives or master conventional forms; instead, I was encouraged to explore—scribbling freely on his rough layouts, painting with unrestrained hands across vast stretches of canvas, even leaving traces on his own works in progress.

My father believed in preserving the raw, instinctual nature of a child’s creativity. His philosophy was simple yet profound: “Never teach a child to draw until they are ten.” He saw early instruction as a limitation, a structure that could confine the boundless possibilities of a young mind. For him, the unfiltered language of lines, shapes, and colours was far more valuable than rigid technique. This belief has stayed with me, shaping my approach to art—not as a pursuit of perfection but as an evolving dialogue between material, intuition, and memory.

My artistic inspiration is deeply entwined with the landscape of my formative years on the northern fringes of Kolkata—a terrain caught between the semi-urban and the semi-rural, where nature and human intervention were in constant negotiation. I grew up witnessing the quiet yet unrelenting transformation of my surroundings; the slow disappearance of water bodies, trees felled to make way for concrete and once-thriving paddy fields consumed by the sprawl of development. These shifting topographies were more than mere environmental changes; they were erasures of memory, identity, and cultural continuity.

This lived experience instilled in me a deep awareness of land as a dynamic, ever-evolving entity— one that is shaped, altered, and often contested by the forces of human ambition and environmental flux. My practice emerges from this understanding, seeking to unravel the layered histories embedded within terrain, exploring the tensions between permanence and impermanence, and questioning what is lost and what endures in the wake of change.

Yes, I am currently developing a new body of work that expands on my ongoing exploration of land. I am particularly interested in the intersection of materiality and narrative, so I’ll be experimenting more with layered pigments, fabrics, paper and even mixed media to evoke these demented histories embedded within landscapes.