Over the past four decades, Sudhir Patwardhan has received immense critical acclaim for his in-depth depiction of Mumbai. His canvas now seems to have shifted its focus to the city inside. His new series of works, entitled ‘Family Fiction’ is akin to ‘a process in progress’. The pastels of PWD blues and greens are perhaps yet to seamlessly merge with the domestic 'objectivity' he is trying to play with...At a conceptual level, his work has essentially been about the outside realm, well visible to us. This time though, the artist has turned inward, letting out a sense of interiority. According to him, the interiority stems from the way Mumbai has grown - a lot more intense and seething with so much more.
Explaining the metamorphosis of his muse over the years, he mentions that the city knew, in spite of its apparent polarities, was still a place that remained accessible to all. There has been a dramatic makeover in the milieu that the labor class could once easily identify with. He adds: “This now doesn't appear to hold. Reversing the scenario, a rich person would feel just as uncomfortable in an underprivileged neighborhood something not necessarily the case in the past.”
The socially conscious artist, who rightfully considers himself a ‘painter of people’, depicts multiple peculiar perspectives into struggles of urbane population, Mumbai in particular, the melting pot of commercial, financial and sociological ironies. His oils on canvas works incorporate a skillfully honed aesthetic to explore everyday realities of the city life, its locales and the way it inhabitants shape it.
Sudhir Patwardhan is known to portray Mumbai’s working class and their strenuous living, subsequently linking it to the post-liberalized hyper-polis. He wants to take the viewers beyond the surface tensions and noises of one of the world’s most densely populated and most energetic metros, engaging them in a probing encounter with it. His works explore the urban milieu of dislocation, anonymity and alienation.
No comments:
Post a Comment