Jayashree Chakravarty was born in Tripura in 1956. She completed her bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Viswa Bharati in Santiniketan. After her bachelor's, she got her post-graduate diploma in Fine Arts from the MS University of Baroda, where she was exposed to an urban sensibility. She was also an artist in residence at Aix-en-Provence from 1993-95, where she was influenced in the formative years of her practice by the French Movement.

She spent her early days in Kolkata, in the proximity of hills and forests, thereby coming across a variety of flora and fauna. As the township became a concrete jungle with few traces of nature left behind, it influenced her paintings, where the old and new cityscapes are melded with fine expertise.

She follows her art-making techniques, using organic material and varied kinds of papers. Her installations in the form of paper scrolls remain unique in their conception and execution. In her works, she uses superimposed forms. She received the Gujarat Lalit Kala Akademi Award and the Second Bharat Bhavan Biennale Award in 1988.