Divine Inspiration

Graduating with a degree in commercial arts from the Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya,Patankar joined an advertising agency in the city. “I was happy with my work but it wasn’t fulfilling. Painting was my passion. Sai Baba came to me in my dream one night and told me to leave my job and make divine paintings. I was very confused as to what to do. Three months later,I quit my job and decided to start painting saints,Gods and other things that I dreamt of,” reveals Patankar.

“My family was very concerned about how I would make my living. Even I was skeptical about making enough money to survive,but my faith was my driving force. Painting images that flashed in my dreams gave me fulfillment. I am grateful to the Almighty that since I made the decision to quit my job in March 1993,I have never faced shortage of funds and have lived a decent life ” he smiles as he goes on to say,“The disciples of Narhar Swami had given me 21 black and white photographs of him and asked me to convert them into paintings. I had to put in a lot of research into which colours I should use. They were liked by the disciples so much that they compiled a calender of my paintings and distributed it free of cost on this birth anniversary. One of those paintings is placed on the Math at Nene Ghat.”

Patankar gets orders to make paintings of saints,gods,goddesses and even deceased parents. “ There is more devotion than skill in my work. It is my way of worshiping and connecting with the almighty. I only paint images that have divine meaning to them,” he says. Patankar uses new techniques and keeps up with the trends in the art form. His latest paintings have a 3-D effect that is a combination of painting and sculpture. “I paint the image then I work with m-seal on it so it looks as if the image is coming out of the canvas” he says.

Poetry is also Patankar’s forte. He generally captions all of his paintings with two lines of divine poetry but apart from this,he has also published compilation of poems in Marathi called Sree Swami Samarth Leela. “ When I approached Anmol Publications,they had refused to publish my poems initially,but after listening to three of my poems they decided to publish all 52 pieces of poetry I had written.” he says.