Important Notice

Manu Parekh began his artistic career as an actor and set designer on the stages of Bombay`s theatres. These early experiences are still reflected in the scale and spectacle of his canvases, particularly his colorful series of Benares landscapes.

Parekh began painting the city after he began visiting it in the 1980s, following his father`s death. Inspired by its dualities of life and death, light and shadow, faith and fear, the... Manu Parekh began his artistic career as an actor and set designer on the stages of Bombay`s theatres. These early experiences are still reflected in the scale and spectacle of his canvases, particularly his colorful series of Benares landscapes.

Parekh began painting the city after he began visiting it in the 1980s, following his father`s death. Inspired by its dualities of life and death, light and shadow, faith and fear, the artist has been painting the `holy` or `eternal` city ever since. Balancing darker tones with the iridescent interiors of the temples, Parekh`s cityscapes do not portray any of Benares`s residents, but focus on the city itself. Using bold, fluid brushstrokes and heavy impasto, these pieces recall the works of German Expressionists like Kirchner, Nolde and Kandinsky. The trees, flowers, and temples of these landscapes are intense and overwhelming, almost spilling off the banks of the Ganges into the holy river. Along with the river, these elements threaten to burst out of the frame, making viewers nervous with their volatility.

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