‘Wells, Clouds, Skulls’ by Gieve Patel at The Guild, Mumbai

Mumbai based Guild Gallery presents the preview of a new series by Gieve Patel, entitled ‘Wells, Clouds, Skulls’. The exhibit is the preview of the solo scheduled for May 2011 at Bose Pacia, New York.

Gieve Patel is a well-known painter and writer. His paintings are in public and private collections in India and in other countries, including the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal; the Jehangir Nicholson Collection, Mumbai; the Museum of Modern Art, Menton, France; the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts, USA. He is a recipient of Woodrow Wilson and Rockefeller Fellowships.

Elaborating on his oeuvre, a press release mentions of the large scale, monumental and vivacious versions of his current series of painted works (Looking into a Well), which are evocations of the splendor of the physical world around. They are suggestive while at the same time of explorations of the highly complex inner recesses of the human psyche. His drawings of clouds fill us with a vision that challenges our very notions of artistic form.

As the artist points out, clouds are invariably in the process of both forming & dissolving, and since both the activities happen congruently, we witness a world of endless instability. His charcoal drawings depicting skulls sure are formally inventive. They are though, free from the macabre. He displays here both a detached vision and intense involvement, in equal measure.

The drawings appear to be presented sans an obvious context, there’s not being even a base line that would suggest a resting surface for these skulls. This lends them a fleeting feeling of an existence in a contemplative and philosophical space. The three themes of his new show seemingly embrace the three different worlds of our passing existence. Subtle connections tend to weave back & forth between them as we see this suit of work.