Important Notice

Manu Parekh’s artistic career began on the stages of Bombay, where he worked as an actor and set designer. His early experiences in theatre continue to influence the artist, and are reflected in the scale and spectacle of his canvases, particularly his colorful series of Benares landscapes.

Parekh began painting the holy city of Benares after his first visit there in the 1980s, following his father’s death. Inspired by the many... Manu Parekh’s artistic career began on the stages of Bombay, where he worked as an actor and set designer. His early experiences in theatre continue to influence the artist, and are reflected in the scale and spectacle of his canvases, particularly his colorful series of Benares landscapes.

Parekh began painting the holy city of Benares after his first visit there in the 1980s, following his father’s death. Inspired by the many dualities that seemed to inform the city and its residents – of life and death, light and shadow, faith and fear – the artist has been painting its river-bank architecture ever since. Balancing the darker tones of trees and land with the iridescent interiors of temples and the deep inky-blue of the nighttime sky, this work, like Parekh’s other cityscapes, does not portray any of the eternal city’s residents, but focuses instead on the heaving, living city itself. Using bold brushstrokes, this large canvas recalls the work of German Expressionists like Kirchner, Nolde and Kandinsky. All the elements that populate the frame are intense and overwhelming, almost spilling off the banks of the Ganges and into its sacred waters. Along with the dark, swirling water, these trees and temples threaten to burst out of the frame, making viewers nervous with their volatility.

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