Born in Khoai, Tripura, Chakravarty completed her BFA from Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan and obtained her Masters (diploma) from M. S. University in Baroda. Along with her formal studies in India she was an artist in residence at the Ecole d´ Art in Aix-en-Provence, France.
Her selected Solo exhibitions include 2003: Route Map of Experience, (India Habitat Centre. New Delhi, Presented by: Vadhera Art Gallery, New Delhi & Galerie88, Kolkata); In 2002: The Mind is its Own Place, (Bose Pacia Modern, New York); in 2000: Thoughts Ricochet, (Vadhera Art Gallery, New Delhi); in 1999: (CIMA Gallery, Kolkata); in 1998 L The Drawing Centre, New York); in 1997 L Gallery7, Mumbai); in 1995: (Ecole d’Art, Aix-en-Provence); in 1994: (Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata); in 1992: (Sakshi Gallery.Mumbai, Sakshi Gallery, Chennai); (Gallery Espace. New Delhi). Selected group exhibitions include in 1997: Fire and Life, An Indo- Australian residency in Calcutta and Brisbane; Women Artists of India A Celebration of Independence, (Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland); in 1995: A Braoder Spectrum, Watercolours, Gallery Chemould, (Mumbai).
Chakravarty’s art training in Baroda has prompted most to seek the narrative style in her work but her oeuvre would reveal distinct maturity and transmutative ageing of her style which defines her as an artist who is transmigrating from one phase to other, making her art more cerebral over the years, incorporating new ideas and modes of expression mostly traced from her ‘journey through the life’. She is one of the artists who dares to break the mould and evolve constantly- thus her easily identifiable works- yet has a distinct periodic uniqueness. Her use of brush, palette knife, fingers and imprint of what is popularly known as the bubble wrap for desired effect though has not much changed, yet the effect varies from canvas to canvas .Works with strong painterly quality emerge as the strongest element which she creates by the rich texture that produces the illusion of being continuously in motion…. She experiments engagingly with an exciting variety of media like rice paper, tissue and cellophane. Motifs and symbols play an essential part in shaping her works. Encountering visual experiences is an integral part of her strategy as an artist.
In recent shows like Memory Record (2004), the human figure re-emerges in an androgynous form. While her translucent images suggest fluidity and transience, a profusion of intricate map-markings, railway lines, road signs, calligraphy and graffiti come together, play against each other to reconstruct the complex workings of self identification, dreams, memory, un/conscious and so on.
She has been honored with Bombay Art Society Award, Mumbai (1980) and Honorable Mention Award, Asian Art Biennial, Dhaka, Bangladesh (1997) to name a few. She lives and works in Kolkata.