Pillar | Sudhir Patwordon: How Dreams Demold

The art of Sudhir Patwordon has always focused the working class of Mumbai. , Photo Credit: Emmanuel Yogini

The vast arch of metal and concrete dominates the landscape. Gaganchumbi buildings with marine scenes have a balcony seats for excavation of the soul of Mumbai. Three figures from Holocosts quietly stare at the intestines of the city, where a grave of bodies forgets and surrounded by collapsed houses, carrying a red wave on a highway leads cars to a gate on the upper right corner of the painting: the door of the aswitz. ‘Work Librate’, the Nazis emerged at the concentration camp gate.

At least one lakh people were driven away here, many people were forced to work until they were murdered. Artist Sudhir Patwordan wants you to think about the purpose of ‘Vikas’. He says that it is “a statement on the absence of a nation, which was created due to suffering their people during World War II, and now they have become another type of cattle criminals against another community … we repeat history in so many ways.” He is talking about the war on Gaza.

For 50 years, the art of Patwordon has focused the working class of Mumbai. For three of these decades, he had a day -long job as a radiologist (he started painting in medical school), until his art finally began to provide livelihood. Now 76, he looks more deadly radiologist than an artist. He says that his new work reflects “some negativity” about the city he has “long associated”.

‘Built and Broken’ by Sudhir Patvardon

The Thane-based artist’s post-pandemic work development exposes nature. For at least laborious classes, the city’s idea as urban utopia has crashed. “Somewhere in the future, perhaps the city will be a better place, a different place, but it is only for a certain class of people,” says Patwordon, whose travel exhibition City: Manufactured, broken Recently shown in New Delhi and Mumbai, and will stop next in Kolkata and Kochi.

“Over the years, a person has come in contact with a person who is happening worldwide, where cities can be erased,” says Patwordon. The whole idea of ​​’cities’ seems to be purely about real estate. For example, Donald Trump sees Gaza as real estate. ” He is referring to the US President’s wish to convert Gaza into ‘Riviera’ of Middle East. He said, “Today’s life is strong on the absence of life.”

A city changed

Patwordon figures are always aggressive, now they are tired, defeated, disconnected. If his famous 1977 Iranian Cafe A crisp kurta depicts a strong gent sitting on a marble top table, in his new painting of an Iranian cafe, the central figure is skeleton and wearing ragdali clothes, which depicts the turmoil in the land from where he came from which he came from his ancestors. ,Is Shah Meen Har Shakes Parshan Sa Kun Hai‘(‘ Why is ‘why everyone in this city looks worried’), a visitors of his Mumbai show quoted the line from an Urdu ghazal by Shaherir, Patvardon told me with laughter.

‘Bus stop’ by Sudhir Patwordon

The artist and his wife Shanta Kallayanpurkar shows together in the Mumbai Gallery every day, who greet old friends and visitors who join the exhibition. Under the road, a retrospective of Giv Patel, the best friend of Patwordon, passing through pancreatic cancer in 2023, is showing.

Both were first involved when art critic Dineshwar Nadkarni suggested that Patvordon meet another doctor who is a painter “. It was the beginning of a friendship that included criticizing each other’s work. On the performance of Patel’s show, a conversation in Marine Drive has painting of two friends, which are regular Add aPatel has another work in the last week of Patel in the hospital. Patel is worn by white pajamas and kurtas and is sitting on a bed. There is no fear or regrets on his face, it is a picture of a man who comes forward. A well in his favor reflects Patel’s childhood attraction. Patvordon worked to complete a picture all night, which he painted with a picture of Patel, but his friend was unaffected. He said that his left arm was not visible, so Patvardon portrayed it.

The space is political

Sudhir Patwordon’s ‘under a clear blue sky’

From the socialist of the 1970s to the ‘super development’ of this era, Patvordon’s eye has always been sympathetic and through this period from the point of view of “common people living common people”. His words can be understood slowly, but his painting tells another story. There are demolitions everywhere. A Muslim man sees the audience as his back, a yellow JCB, demolishing his house. Potwordon feels intense discomfort about “bulldozer rule” and how it has become less and less possible for people to speak about anything. Other visual effects include enlarged congestion and militarization of our cities; Climbing artistic freedom; Geography of social divisions; And violence on television and real life. “Hopefully people wake up to this reality and try to change things,” they say.

In another painting, which depicts a throwing collage of the residents of the city begins with a central sketch of the gate of Ajanta caves that take him on a journey through December 6, Ambedkar’s death anniversary and Buddhism. In the show’s catalog, art critic Gayatri Sinha writes, “Like Marxist thinker Lafebre, Petwordon’s intention is to show that space is political, even it shows the modernity project to derail a track.”

Or in simple words of Patvordon: “The life of people tolerating through it should be recorded and it should be talked about.” He has done this for half a century and why he has so big.

The author is a Bangalore-based journalist and co-founder of India Love Project on Instagram.