Firebrand painter Manu Parekh transitions from topical work to the sublime Every inch of wall space in Manu Parekhs home in Delhis Sukhdev Vihar is covered with art. From a large blue canvas by the artist himself to wife Madhvi Parekhs naïve art works. There is also a painting by daughter Manisha but the last canvas by his granddaughter confirms that art certainly runs in the veins of this family. Parekh Senior is having his umpteenth solo,this time its at Worlis Tao Art Gallery. The suites of celebratory works painted in vivid acrylic colours date from 2004 to 2009 and are titled The Pursuit of Intensity. Curated by Ranjit Hoskote,the exhibition marks a definite break with much of Parekhs earlier work. In this body of work,cosmic flowers explode across his pictorial surfaces which shimmer with the beauty of pattern and the lyrical unpredictability of gesture, says Hoskote. Parekh,sipping on hot ginger tea,tells us why it was time to move on from topical works like the Bhagalpur blindings or the Bhopal gas tragedy which marked his earlier oeuvre. My canvas can no longer be a space to express personal feelings. I want to embrace something universal and tap into that great energy that drives human beings towards faith, says the 70-year-old Ahmedabad-born painter. Parekh created a stir as an important artist from the JJ School of art in the 1960s. His stint at the National School of Drama also informed his sensibility as a painter and his love for craft brought about synergy with the traditional when he worked with eminent scholar Pipul Jayakar for the Weavers Service Centre. I havent abandoned my love for the head-study but in this set of works I preferred to concentrate on abstract forms and floral motifs, explains Parekh. Whether it is Jerusalem,Turkey,Benares,Rome or Ladakh,Parekh ignores the strife around religion. Instead he seizes the fervour and translates it into colour and line on his canvas. He even titled this series of 14 large canvases,Chant and Flowers from Heaven. The motifs of the ling and yoni appear periodically in canvases like the 60x120 inch diptych Chant I and the gentler Flowers from Heaven II. Its not a sexual but a divine energy that I hope to capture, concludes Parekh.
