This year, a young illustrator and artist, Kuhoo Mitra’s one-day solo exhibition was exhibited at Calcutta Rowing Club on Sunday, 16th June. Mitra is a student of the bachelor of fine arts in illustration at the School of Visual Arts, New York City, and will begin her final year in the coming fall.

“I used to read a lot of children’s books and would love to draw my own characters and scenes passionately since childhood, and my parents have supported and encouraged me a lot in this field,” she said.

Mitra decided to pursue her career as a freelance illustrator at an early age, and immensely admired iconic painters and illustrators like Satyajit Ray, Nandalal Bose and Bikash Bhattacharya.

In this exhibition, she displayed 21 paintings and five illustrated, hand-bound books done by herself.

She has been illustrating and publishing books since her school days. Her first illustrated book of Bengali poems, Somoyer Chokhe, was written by Subhanu Mitra and published by Bani Sansad Publishing House in Kolkata in 2018. One of her best illustrated books covers Bengali short stories titled Oder Golpo, written by Shreya Ghosh and published by Parampara Prakashan in Kolkata in 2020. A fifteen-page illustrated book written in Bengali and depicting through pictures the various rituals and events that take place is titled Durga Puja. The writing, typography, design, screen-printing and binding were all done by Kuhoo herself. She used the Japanese stab-binding method for this book, which was made in New York in 2023. She has illustrated a few accordion books, Creature of the Deep Sea and Cracking India in 2023.

Kuhoo has been experimenting in different mediums, sizes, styles and subject matter, though in this exhibition she focused on water colour, gouache and coloured pencils. Kuhoo has expertise in mediums like water colours, acrylics, pen and ink, graphite and charcoal.

“I was highly enchanted by the Western illustrators and writers at the age of 3–4 years. I got the primary idea of illustration and storyboard drawings from them and their illustrated picture books and magazines,” she says.

This was Kuhoo Mitra’s first solo exhibition, where she expressed a strong commitment to creating illustrated books in Bengali. She observed that despite the growing diversity in the picture book industry, Bengali culture remains underrepresented in English-language picture books. Consequently, Kuhoo aims to produce more illustrated books featuring Bengali protagonists, exploring unique aspects of Bengali culture. Her upcoming works will address themes like breaking stereotypes about Bengalis, celebrating Bengali customs, food and culture, and delving into the history of Bengal and the Indian subcontinent.

The writer is a freelance contributor