Translating Fluid Feelings | Inside-Out: A Conversation with Arrushi Chakraborty

ELSEHERE
Jul 18
6 min read

Arrushi Chakraborty's work focuses on exploring the liminal space between disparate cultures, translating profound human emotions into graphic forms, and capturing the everyday poetry of urban environments. In this interview, she shares her creative transition from corporate graphic design to narrative illustration. She discusses the intense physical and emotional process of generating a wordless picture book about family heritage. Ultimately, she unpacks the thematic dialogue between her outward urban documentation and her inward visual diaries.

ELSEHERE: You grew up in Kolkata and now live in New York, and you’ve described your practice as existing in a liminal space between cultures. When did you first become aware of that in-betweenness, not as theory, but as lived sensation?

Arrushi Chakraborty: Lived experiences are an intimate part of my art practice. Even though I came to the United States at the age of 18 for art school, I consider myself to have grown up in both Kolkata and New York. There was something about growing up in two cities, 8,000 miles apart and with many cultural differences, that made something click. My best example of a liminal space would be New York’s public parks. The first place I ended up after landing in the city was Madison Square Park by SVA, and it gave me a sense of awakening, as nature often does. Birds, trees, sunlight, the whole deal. The concept of an open place in nature, with people milling around and a Shake Shack pop-up still standing there, was very foreign to me. It was my first experience of the endless possibilities in New York. I often like to sit and draw in parks now, surrounded by birds, greenery, and the life of New York.

ELSEHERE: Across picture books, carousel comics, editorial illustration, and design-informed image-making, what is the question, pressure, or condition that most consistently organizes your practice?

Arrushi Chakraborty: Wonder as a means of questioning. I consider myself a whimsical artist for sure, and when my curiosity is piqued by something, I definitely consider it worth asking questions. As an observer and a listener, I pay attention to minute things—the curve of a smile, the bustle of the trains at 6 AM, the cinematic details of life. Interconnectedness and all the ways in which we live and perceive the world around us. To the unfamiliar eye, my picture books, comics, and illustrations look pretty colorful and straightforward—but there is often a deeper meaning hidden in the layers between form, line, and color. For example, My Mother’s Sari, from the outside, is pretty, but wordless and ambiguous in meaning. However, as one opens the book, there are interactive elements like flaps, windows, and textures that really help immerse the viewer in my world.

ELSEHERE: You describe My Mother’s Sari as a wordless picture book about the cycle of life, generational grief, love, and loss. Why did this story need to be wordless? What could silence hold here that language could not?

Arrushi Chakraborty: Thank you for your question. This project was created in Eugenia Mello’s ‘Extraordinary Picture Books’ class at SVA. Initially, since the project was time-constrained, I believed it would be less time-consuming not to have a script. However, my beliefs were quickly challenged once I started, as wordless images can often be harder to convey. However, as an illustrator who loves challenges and growth, I stuck with it. The story is definitely on the heavier side, and I figured it would be worth a shot. I decided to let the images carry the storytelling, and then later realized that is the whole point of illustration—to convey narrative through visuals. This project, culminating through memory and action, confirmed for me what years of learning art theory in college could not.

ELSEHERE: The sari in this project is clearly more than an object. At what point did it become, for you, a structure of memory rather than simply a familial or cultural reference?

Arrushi Chakraborty: I built this project on my personal relationship with my mother and how I remembered her growing up. Homesickness and cultural references were definitely key elements to this book; however, time as a concept was a critical foundation. My mother and I were always close, and for my final book at SVA I decided to explore our relationship. There was also the future and what it holds. The story itself represents the cycle of life. As graduation drew closer and closer, there was a lot of uncertainty in my life. What was I to do once I closed this chapter of my own story? I decided to incorporate a full cycle of past, present, and future into this book to reassure myself that, no matter what was to come, life and love were always here.

ELSEHERE: Your series New York Neighborhoods and your memoir-like carousel comics seem to move in opposite directions, one outward toward the city, the other inward toward vulnerability and memory. How do these two bodies of work speak to each other?

Arrushi Chakraborty: Going back to my perception of liminal spaces, I think outer and inner worlds have always coexisted. I often find myself diving deep into the push and pull of these spheres. Even as an illustrator, I had often found it difficult to clearly define how art and I coexist until I realized what my primary motive for image-making was—narration. To tell a truly moving and coherent story. New York Neighborhoods and my memoir-esque comics truly speak to each other, as they are both part of me and my perception of life as I know it. New York Neighborhoods looks out on my experiences of New York as I travel through each neighborhood, while my carousel comics are more a narration of what those experiences have taught me. Ultimately, they are both a part of the same world.

ELSEHERE: At this stage of your life and work, what feels most urgent for you to keep pursuing, even if it remains difficult to define clearly?

Arrushi Chakraborty: It is urgent that I know how to define my work. As artists, we have all had trouble at some point categorizing our work because the line between ourselves and our art can often get blurred. At this stage of my life, I hope to spearhead my artistic practice not merely as an extension of myself, but as something that has the potential to grow as it is perceived by more and more people. I hope to create art that is relatable; hence, I often ground my work in worlds my audience lives in and emotions I think are universal and easy for them to imagine and channel.

ELSEHERE: When people encounter your work, what do you hope stays with them after the page is turned, the screen is closed, or the image is gone?

Arrushi Chakraborty: I hope they remember me as an artist they can relate to! Once the image is gone, I hope my innermost message stays in their mind and motivates them to reconnect with their goodness, the gold of this world, and be their true selves.

Arrushi Chakraborty's Work

About Arrushi Chakraborty

Arrushi Chakraborty is a Brooklyn-based visual artist, publishing designer, and illustrator originally from Kolkata, India. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration, supplemented by three semesters of formal training in Graphic Design.

Her professional practice bridges literature and visual storytelling across children's publishing, editorial layout, and brand strategy. Her industry experience includes working as a design intern for Macmillan Audio, where she art-directed and adapted book covers across commercial categories, as well as developing visual assets for collaborative initiatives between the International Gemological Institute and NASA.

She currently serves on the programming committee for BLK + BRWN Book Designers. Her award-winning illustrations have been recognized internationally, including as a Runner-Up for Creative Quarterly 82 and as a nominee for the Society of Illustrators Zankel Scholar award.

Artist Statement

Unlike many artists who discovered drawing early, I describe myself as a ‘late bloomer’ who found my voice through words and poetry before picking up the brush. I consider myself a whimsical artist, and my creative practice operates in a liminal space where the earthy textures of Kolkata blend into the crisp geometry of New York design. For me, image-making is not merely about decoration; it is about translating fluid feelings into concrete forms through flat colors, imperfect lines, and disciplined compositions. I strive to build highly relatable worlds that ground universal human emotions, allowing viewers to engage in a gentle dialogue between humor and deep introspection. Ultimately, my mission is to ensure my art can exist where people least expect it, whether on the side of a subway station, on the cover of a book, or in a child's imagination.

About Inside Out

Inside Out is ELSEHERE’s long-form conversation series, published through STRATUM. It begins from the belief that before artists are understood through category, institution, or medium, they must also be encountered through the deeper structures that shape a practice over time: memory, method, contradiction, relation, and the conditions of life pressing from within the work. This conversation with Arrushi Chakraborty has been edited from her written responses for publication.

Edited by Yuyang Hu