DAG’s ongoing exhibition of recent works by Madhvi Parekh highlights the artist’s vivid, fabular, and folkloric imagination
Pond In My Village
As a child, I wasn’t allowed to swim. My mother wouldn’t let me. Some of those yearnings stay in your dreams and come out in your work,” artist Madhvi Parekh told a roomful of eager faces at the exhibition walkthrough of her show Remembered Tales, organised at the DAG on its opening weekend in Mumbai. The exhibition showed in New Delhi through July and August and came to Mumbai last month, unveiling a body of newly completed works by the artist.
Madhvi Parekh. Pic Courtesy/dagworld.com
Two of the paintings in the exhibition, ‘Pond in my Village’ and ‘Bathing in the Pond’ present vibrant village scenes around water bodies, with men and women, birds and animals, trees, charpais, huts and shrines, harking back to those memories and desires associated with her idyllic childhood in Sanjaya, Gujarat, that the 83-year-old artist alluded to during the event’s lively Q&A session. ‘Travelling Circus in my Village’, a large triptych occupying one end of the exhibit, with its endlessly inventive depictions of behrupiyas, nimble acrobats with devil-like horns and a variety of hybrid, fantastical creatures, similarly, draws inspiration from the sights and experiences of the artist’s rural childhood. In spite of having spent a large part of her adult life in urban centres, Parekh is, as she insists, “not a painter of cities”.
Travelling Circus In My Village – triptych. All are acrylic on canvas
Other works in the show like ‘Goddess of my Village’, ‘Goddess Kali’ and ‘Goddess Durga’ present the mother goddesses in canvases dense with creatures animated by Parekh’s vivid, fabular and folkloric imagination. Creatures encased within creatures, Mahishasur blending into a snake and centipedes with human heads abound, all marked with Parekh’s characteristic inverted-trident noses. At the opening of the show, Parekh stated that Kolkata which was one of the cities that shaped her career offered significant encouragement in her early years and that her goddess figures were inspired by the city’s traditions. “Kolkata was exciting because every day there is a celebration, a festival, a cultural charge. It is a city animated by women,” the artist told us later.
Two Scarecrows In My Rice Field
“I practise every day,” Parekh mentioned during the walkthrough, referring to a discipline around drawing reflected in a persistent, long-held habit of maintaining sketchbooks. Remembered Tales displays these sketchbooks, dating from 1978 to 2018, offering a peek into the intimate processes of artistic thought and creation, and is accompanied by a publication, as well as a three-volume set documenting five decades of Parekh’s sketchbook practice.
Goddess Durga
We asked her if there was a period from her years of sustained creative work that stood out. “The catalytic impulse comes from so many places over so many periods that it is difficult to say one is more important than the other,” insisted Parekh. “If I had not had the kind of childhood I enjoyed, would it have served as a memory in my paintings? If I had not taken the Paul Klee-inspired lessons, would I have begun my artistic journey? Had I not been saddened by what I saw at the Holocaust Museum, would I have found catharsis in my own paintings? In an almost organic way, my art has become my life, as much a part of my day as cooking, or doing my chores, meeting friends from the art world, or painting every single day. And every day that the river of art flows, it becomes part of an interesting, collective journey.”
Goddess Of My Village
WHAT: Madhvi Parekh: Remembered Tales
WHERE: DAG, The Taj Mahal Palace, Colaba
WHEN: Till October 31
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