On Assignment.
Sudhir Patwardhan - Artist
I'm not familiar with the art scene in Mumbai but this man, a doctor, captures the mood of the Mumbai to Pune monstercities on the faces of his people, and the environment they live in, like no one else. I wish I could click images like them.
Gayatri Jayaraman writes about route maps here in Mint Lounge. From the article:
"Patwardhan’s gaze in the new works is not judgmental, it observes a specific disintegration of class—a strain running contrary to the class ideologies evident in his early works. “Earlier there was this sense of camaraderie with people of a certain class because of ideological leanings. Now that has more or less loosened. One still feels sympathetic but the distinctions between class are more blurred today. You no longer speak for individuals, because the individual himself is no longer representative of the whole class,”
Sudhir Patwardhan says, “The cities as they are transformed begin to look the same: clones of each other”
"A society that transforms everyone and every place in the same way, is in effect a homogeneous society where it is the individual who is hostile."
See his best work here on his website.
So see his exhibition called Route Maps at The Guild, Colaba. Details here
