Kuhoo Mitra 1st Painting Exhibition

Kolkata: Kuhoo Mitra is a talented and promising upcoming illustrator. Presently only 21 years old, she has shown merit and excellence since a very young age. During a press meet with her at Calcutta Rowing Club she told us she was just four or five years old when she knew she wanted to pursue a career in Visual Arts. She read a lot of children’s books, and influenced by the pictures in them, she would draw her own characters and sceneries. Her parents always encouraged her passion for art. Growing up, she visited many art galleries like Academy of Fine Arts and Birla Academy with them and was greatly inspired by the works she saw there.

She also let us know that while in school she experimented with several mediums – acrylics, watercolors, pen and ink, graphite and charcoal, to name a few. In school she first learnt how to do linocut printing which she enjoyed immensely and continues to do frequently even now. she mostly works with watercolor, gouache and colored pencils. She also does printmaking with linocut and silkscreen.

Kuhoo left for New York City right after she graduated from high school in 2021 to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts, NYC with a partial scholarship from the college. She has just completed her third year and will begin her final year in the coming fall. Her education there is playing a huge role in her development as an artist. She feels lucky to be living in a city full of museums like MET and MoMA and studying under professors who are all eminent illustrators.

Some subjects Kuhoo hopes to explore in her future books and illustrations are breaking stereotypes about Bengalis, celebrating Bengali customs, food and culture, and discussing the history of Bengal and the Indian subcontinent.