There are many, many examples of literary and visual artists who have adopted alternative personae to apprehend particular experiences, enabling them to physically and intellectually engage with specific discourses or critically interface with the public. The first few examples that come to mind are Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy. Adrian Piper as The Mythic Being, writer Fernando Pessoa and his seventy-two ‘heteronyms’, writer and artist Brian O’Doherty as Patrick Ireland and several others including Cindy Sherman’s many alter-egos; all characters functioning for time-limited or long term strategic purposes. George Chakravarthi has similarly utilized this mode of inquiry and presentation to ‘de’ and ‘re’ construct definitions of gender, racial identity and sexuality within his live performances, photographs and video installations.

Chakravarthi considers much of his work to be a series of self-portraits. As a multi-disciplinary artist he draws inspiration from cinema, art history, public and private spaces and from collective social and cultural histories. Chakravarthi engages the viewer with his honest exploration of human emotions, conditions and restrictions. Using experiences from his own life, he often reveals painful situations, memories and experiences with an acute sensibility, cogent perceptions and generous humanity.

He has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally from venues as diverse as The Site Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Tate Modern, The Victoria and Albert Museum, UK, Mousonturm, Germany, Kunstnanken, Norway, The Queens Gallery, India to museums and other public sites.
He has been has been commissioned by the BBC, Artangel, The Arts Council of England, The British Council, The National Review of Live Art and SPILL Festival of Performance.

Currently he is creating a site-specific photographic installation commissioned by The Royal Shakespeare Company for Shakespeare’s Tower in Stratford-Upon-Avon.