Material Man

A product of the Baroda Faculty of Fine Arts, Patel belongs to the late ’50s and ’60s generation of sculptors with their formalist preoccupation for material and singular motifs. Today, he works alone in an open studio, flanked by mango trees, in the suburbs of Vadodara. He reserves his farm near Miagam village, 30 kms away from the city, for large sculptures. ‘‘One day I will build a small house and workshop here,’’ he declares.

The wax mould, meanwhile, has begun to take shape like a childhood memory revisited. It combines playfulness and innocence with an erotic sensuousness that one associates with Patel’s works. ‘‘I dream of many things but most of all to return to the village, to the work there and make something close to the people working there,” he explains .

If there is on e thing that gets him worked up, its the recent craze for installation art. ‘‘It is a borrowed form of expression, from Western ideas and concepts. We have enough life and inspirational forms in our own surroundings, why do we need to seek it elsewhere,’’ he asks.

The modernist obsession with surface runs through his works. ‘‘Carving involves me in the work from the beginning to the end. I enjoy the sound of chisel and the hammer, the emerging texture. Working on stone puts you in a meditative mood.’’

Of all the places he has visited and worked in, Japan was his most satisfactory experience. ‘‘I learnt a lot of things there like planning according to the deadline. Initially, the thought of finishing a large sculpture within a month scared me but with these mechanical tools, I can accomplish it,’’ he says.

Patel is concerned about the fact that the renaissance of Indian sculpture had not seen any revival. “A new beginning has to be initiated by discarding the overused academic style,” he says.

Like the one he made, when he showed sculptures shaped like agricultural tools in a 1995 solo show in Delhi. ‘‘It was the iconography of cultivation in rural India. I identify with the simple farmer ,’’ he smiles.