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Email PageSudhir Patwardhan and Gieve Patel
January 19, 2006- March 4, 2006
Sudhir Patwardhan, Gieve Patel
Bose Pacia Gallery
508 W 26th St Sudhir Patwardhan Abstractionist (2005) |  Sudhir Patwardhan Studio Ghosts (2005) |
Art can provoke, and thereby inspire recognition and change. Gieve Patel and Sudhir Patwardhan are artists who engage in a dialogue through their work addressing issues of fragmentation, materiality and isolation. There's a fundamental similarity in the visual language employed by Patel and Patwardhan. Though both engage with the urban landscape and scenes from the street, they approach their works in different ways?''Sudhir was deeply influenced by Marxist philosophy, with an urge to speak for the marginalized. I never wanted to speak on behalf of others. If Sudhir is the spokesperson, I'm the witness,'' explains Patel. Works such as Paying the Bill are representative of Patwardhan's oeuvre with its heroic rendering of the commonplace. A woman fumbles with her possessions in a display of impatient resignation, yet the solidity of her form conveys a kind of stoic dignity. In his Studio series, the figures loom less large and an aura of introspection takes precedence, a reversal that attests to the complexities of artistic self-realization.
Whether it be painting a landscape or stripping the human body to its bare essentials, the treatment of both subjects has a sense of asceticism about them. One is conscious of being a silent witness, of observing and being observed. In Patel's Battered Man, a pale and delicate landscape wraps around a brutally wounded body embracing it in its entirety. The visceral depiction of bruised flesh contrasts sharply with the surrounding serenity creating an in-between space replete with suggestion and disquiet. His Looking Into A Well series present well interiors and reflected surfaces which hover between realism and pure abstraction. Drawn partly from memory, such images poignantly capture the sensation of losing oneself in the act of looking. For Patel, "...looking into a well is almost consonant with looking into oneself." By urging us not to overlook the everyday, the commonplace and the mundane, Patel and Patwardhan remind us of the importance to keep searching in the act of looking.
Gieve Patel is a practicing physician, an artist, a poet and a playwright. Selected exhibitions include the Menton Biennale, France 1976; India, Myth and Reality, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford 1982; Contemporary Indian Art, Royal Academy of Art, London 1982; Contemporary Indian Art, Grey Art Gallery, New York, 1985, and 'Coups de Coeur', Halle Sud, Geneva, 1987. Patel lives and works in Mumbai.
Sudhir Patwardhan is a self taught artist and a practicing radiologist. Apart from several solo show he has participated in international exhibitions like 'Aspects of Modem Indian Art' Oxford, U.K. 1982; Contemporary Indian Art, festival of India, London, 1982; Seven Indian Artists, Hamburg, West Germany, 1982; Contemporary Indian Art, Festival of India, New York, 1985; Festival of India, Center George Pompidou, Paris 1986 and 'Coupe de Coeur' Geneva, 1987. Patwardhan lives and works in Thane.
Art Reviews of Sudhir Patwardhan and Gieve Patel
| New York Times February 24, 2006 | Holland Cotter | "New York may still be an international culture center, but there is a wealth of art out there that it never, or seldom, sees. Although Gieve Patel and Sudhir Patwardhan, two of the best-known painters in India, are well into the middle of their careers, this two-man show is as close as either has come to having a solo here. Fortunately, these two colleagues and friends make a complementary pair...." |
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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