At 86, Manu Parekh is raring to go. His vibrant abstracts titled Flower Sutra, on show in a New Delhi gallery echoes the feelings of a small child let loose in a kaleidoscopic world of light and joy. Blue, red, green and purple colour the canvas with bold hues, segueing into one another, yet retaining the distinctive individual allure which is a hallmark of the Delhi-based artist’s style. Parekh is showing in Delhi after five years. The 25 pieces at the exhibition were created in his South Delhi studio when the pandemic was raging. While the world was being swallowed by death and darkness, the artist had attempted to discover what binds the universe amidst chaos—faith. He succeeded.
Faith has been Parekh’s long-loved companion. It is the spirit behind his iconic Banaras series, which was born after he visited the city for the first time in 1980. “I had just moved to Delhi after living for a decade in Kolkata. I was a little lost and was looking to reconnect with my art in a new way. Varanasi gave me freedom,” he smiles. What Varanasi gave him, he gave back in return, after all “one should always give back what one has borrowed”, he says, paraphrasing his favourite artist Rabindranath Tagore.
Why Flower Sutra? “Where there is faith, there will always be the presence of flowers. You will find flowers everywhere—be it in life or death. Today the flowers may adorn a deity, tomorrow you might find them lying around, trodden upon on the ghats. I have visited the Vatican, Ajmer, Nizamuddin Auliya’s dargah, Kalighat and, of course, Varanasi. Faith and flowers are common to all these places. Even at home, I see flowers—fresh and offered to the deity every morning wilt the next day, and then discarded,” says the artist. Partnering with wife and artist Madhvi Parekh, he launched a unique collaboration with fashion house Dior.
Twenty-two artworks by the couple were reimagined as embroidery pieces to form the backdrop of the 2022 Paris Haute Couture Week. The textile artworks were taken to the Venice Biennale last year. It was a return to his roots of sorts—Parekh had started his design career with the Weavers’ Service Centre under Pupul Jayakar.
Talking to Parekh is walking down memory lane in Kolkata and Varanasi. These two cities shaped him the most and he wears their imprint on his sleeves proudly. Kolkata opened up his creative mind and encouraged him to become one of India’s leading abstractionists. Varanasi brought him global recognition. When art curator and historian Ina Puri mounted a show on West Bengal artists in Delhi, she include the Gujarati Parekh. “He is undoubtedly one of the most important artists of our time. As far as his work is concerned, the Calcutta period was his most important time as an artist. He is an honorary Bengali,” Puri says. Parekh can quote expansively from Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali. He is almost an authority on cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who worked with Ray on Apu Trilogy, and enjoyed great camaraderie with poet Shakti Chattopadhyay. “Calcutta and its culture, its intellectuals, contributed a lot to his growth and evolution as an artist,” affirms Puri.
The canvases of Flower Sutra capture Parekh’s restless energy that animates nature and human experience. A flower is sliced open, with its throbbing heart exposed to the viewer. “Vivid density and depth are part of his leitmotif. The flower brings alive Sanskrit shlokas chanted at ritual offerings as well as the obeisance of devotees. “Inspired by abstract expressionist masters like the Spanish painter and sculptor Joan Miró, Parekh related their artistic language to Indian accents and created his own language,” says art critic and curator Uma Nair. In the garden of the heart, the artist flowers again and finds a new youth at work.