Madhvi Pareh's people, gods and demons or even plants

THE HINDU
By Tejal Pandey

Veteran modernist artist Madhvi Parekh’s first Mumbai retrospective is reflective of a relentless pursuit of painting and passion

Madhvi Parekh’s works segue into a parallel universe. A world of fantasy, where the strange and the familiar co-exist with the real and the surreal. Where man and nature become one. With faces assigned to each — people, gods and demons or even plants, animals, stars, every personified being in Parekh’s canvas, tells a tale rich in colour and texture. Her renderings are at once figments of her own imagination, as also pastiches of myriad Indian art forms. From the dotted surfaces of her earlier work, which resemble intricate Kantha thread-work or the patterns on a Kalamkari fabric, to the geometric forms akin to Gond or Madhubani folk art, her work revels in its rural leanings. It’s also evocative of our tradition of storytelling through art, seen so often in miniatures, patachitras and phads. [More]