 Radha Chandrashekaran
Starting her art education at the Government Arts College in Madras, Radha earned her BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and In 1997, she was the winner of the International Printmaking Competition sponsored by Praga Press Industries and the American Print Alliance. Radha earned her MFA at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the year 2000, where she was a Lecturer for a year in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Radha has exhibited her works at many National and International printmaking exhibitions. Currently a practicing and traveling artist, she gives lectures at different schools about her research and her ties with rituals from Southern India.
Performance Art & Design in Indigenous Rituals is the subject of her research wherein she is investigating and documenting ground painting patterns created by women in two different cultures: Southern India and Aboriginal society. The research has originated from her interest in original designs in sacred ground paintings called Kolam created by her women ancestors. Her research focuses primarily on geometrical patterns used in sacred ground paintings by women from Southern India and patterns created by women from Arnem Land, Northern Territory of Australia.
The ground paintings and patterns are simple, mythical and meaningful. They serve as a bridge between the past and future; between women of all indigenous cultures. The spirituality behind these sacred ground paintings is of very great richness and depth that we in this present turbulent world have much to learn from.
 My Logo
My logo is a combination of Alpina a sacred yantra and a traditional pottu kolam. The Alpina yantra is used in special rituals for specific functions in South of India. I grew up with drawing these two kolam either for special occasion or for everyday use. Alpina represent the earth, air wind and water and house certain god in the center of the yantra. Yantras are visual tools that serve in meditation either as centering devices or as symbolic compositions of the energy pattern of a deity as seen by Tantric seers in their vision. When a yantra is adopted for worship and the energy is invoked in it, it becomes a symbolic representative of the deity and actually it becomes the deity when the person abandons his analytical, critical attitude and the energy circulates in higher centers. Every yantra becomes the dwelling place of the deity it represents. No idol or picture of a deity is as powerful as a yantra in meditation, because a yantra is composed of archetypical forms that are common to all existing phenomena. The very process of making a yantra is an archetypical activity that works with the encoding of the genes. During the process one moves from concrete reality to abstract truth. The act of drawing and painting yantras teaches the mind how to concentrate, how to be one-pointed. To some people this practice of painting yantras is fascinating and absorbing, while others might not find it as interesting as doing calligraphy or singing, but creating a yantra can yield a valuable lesson. Yantra drawing requires accuracy, exactness, discipline, concentration, neatness and patience. The geometrical forms of the yantra activate the right hemisphere, which is visual and nonverbal. A circle is an extension of a point. With the radius of desire, the point draws a circle around itself and expands. However, the circle also creates an individual consciousness out of cosmic consciousness. After the point and the circle the triangle is the simplest yantra form. Upward triangles draw the attention up and away from the world. In this way, yantras have a grammar of their own.
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About Radha 
