Paul Gopal-Chowdhury’s paintings made their first appearance at Art Space Gallery in 2002 in his exhibition titled Paintings of Heaven and Hell: a group of paintings that were the synthesis of a ten year process of experimentation and consolidation towards a radical position that amalgamated Indian mythological subject matter and east London street scenes.  

Since then the subject matter has remained largely the same: London street scenes, images from Indian miniature paintings, childhood memories and so on. But now, the handling of the surface is more free, open and intuitively expressed, and new, more inventive ways of dealing with ideas of memory and layering have been explored. Older canvases have been reworked, images from different periods assembled together and repainted, and new images painted onto the glass over previously framed works.

These new paintings titled Habits of Eating, Sleeping and Anxiety, all different from each other, are linked through several themes. At the heart of these is London, or rather a part of London, Spitalfields and the Barbican. Significant landmarks for the artist that are repeated and transformed from painting to painting. Time, its passage, what endures and how dreams and thoughts grow through the known into the unknown is the subject. Sometimes as glimpses of particular buildings occur, the thematic linking is like the words of a song which immortalises a place giving it an almost mythic identity.

Paul Gopal-Chowdhury was born in 1949 in India and brought up in England where he studied at Camberwell School of Art (1967-68) and the Slade School of Fine Art (1969-73). His work has been exhibited widely in England and abroad. He was awarded The Gregory Fellowship (1975-77); Artist in residence, Cambridge, at Gonville and Caius College and Kettle’s Yard (1983-84) and The Lorne Award 1995.