An artist who seeks widening participation from people as a metaphor of cultural renewal

As a student artist, Trupti Patel was amazed that despite a living tradition of Indian terracotta, fired clay was not accepted by contemporary art establishments. However, it didn’t diminish her feeling for clay with regenerative powers and earthy nature. For her, concept and reality of ceramic offer both practical participation and unique material transformation.

Her dedication and persistence present a meditative perusal of clay, be it modelling for plaster mould, working with terracotta or thrown shapes or building figures, in moulded and modelled earthenware or stoneware to realize conceptual, practical and socio psychological relationship of the self and culture of people adoring rituals of the forms and functions in society.

The present work, Collective, presents a symbolic will of widening participation from a variety of people as a metaphor of cultural renewal. This work differs from her installation 101 Sips… Walking, seen as a spiritual journey of emblematic oblation to mother nature with spiral of 101 ladles made in 2000-04.

Her images exert a mystic vision with symbolic function of ritual significance as she moulds, marks, pushes and paints the human figure like a meter. Her exploration of clay, lends substance to her images through an array of works as small or life size pieces be it vessels or paper which offer allusions of space, people and society. Trupti’s care and concern reveal rhymes and reality of all consuming fire toughening her curiosity and desire for collective participation of people in creative endeavors.

Trupti Patel was born in Nairobi and brought up in Baroda and Mt. Abu, before obtaining her Masters in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda (1974-1982). In 1983-85, the British Council and Charles Wallace Scholarship allowed her to pursue an M A in Ceramics at the Royal College of Art in London before she began her work as a freelance artist until her return to Vadodara in 1997.

Inaugurated by Shri Ashok Vajpeyi Chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, her new solo after being held at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road in New Delhi has moved to Gallerie Alternatives,Gurgaon.

(Information and image courtesy: Gallerie Alternatives)