Prakash Patel
Prakash Patel was born and raised in Whanganui. From an early age, painting offered an expression for his sense of cultural dislocation, and a means of bridging the gulf between the Gujarati background of his parents, and the culture of provincial New Zealand in the 1970s. He describes himself as feeling out of place – everywhere.
At first glance, Patel’s paintings appear deeply and consciously steeped in his Indian heritage, with their repeating patterns and motifs and the bright, iridescent colours. On closer inspection, they offer something more universal, even cosmic. The canvases are transformed into a night sky filled with stars, comets and craters on distant planets, into the home of fireflies or exploding firecrackers. Equally, they could plunge us into the depths of an unknown ocean, inhabited by strange luminescent creatures, swaying in warm, unseen currents. They are mysterious, beautiful – and determinedly indefinable.
In 2006, Patel was awarded an Artist Residency at Sanskriti Kendra Campus in New Delhi, and in 2001, he received a grant to travel to the State of Gujarat to study the artistic processes of the indigenous Warli people.
The artist comments, ‘I find fundamental aspects of Indian philosophy resonate strongly within my work, particularly in the way it adheres to a holistic view and that everything is connected from the microscopic world to the cosmos.’
Patel was born in Whanganui in 1968, where he currently lives and works. He exhibits regularly in the region and is represented in the permanent collections of the Sarjeant Gallery and private collections throughout New Zealand.
