Over the course of the last six years, Manisha Parekh has shifted away from painting to working with handmade paper. This materiality is a result of her predilection to construct images as a process of growth or the purposeful germination of an idea. This process of creation is as important as the final image for the artist.
“Two years ago she made the series of cut-outs with tracing paper – two layers, placed...
Over the course of the last six years, Manisha Parekh has shifted away from painting to working with handmade paper. This materiality is a result of her predilection to construct images as a process of growth or the purposeful germination of an idea. This process of creation is as important as the final image for the artist.
“Two years ago she made the series of cut-outs with tracing paper – two layers, placed against a black backboard. From white, through grey to black the shapes fairly squirmed against the surface in a mad ballet…she has her papers: silky white rice paper, buff rough banana fiber paper, and striated, simple brown. Yet as her means expand, there is never a sense of excess or of reckless combination. The works are carefully composed. Each time it is as though a ground is prepared and then one feature, one element, is asked to come forward at a time to show itself and the things it can do, and then to recede once again.” (Kavita Singh, Exhibition catalogue, Nature Morte, 2004)