Skip to main content

Lakshmi Incarnate by Rakesh Patel



Visually aesthetically interesting and conceptually very strong is what I felt when I saw Rakesh Patel’s recent art work titled “LAKSHMI INCARNATE”, that is on display at the recently concluded TIMES ARTFEST 2020 show @ Amdavad ni Gufa. The show was curated by Ms Priya Adhyaru Majithia 
At the entrance a huge revolving bottle was on display, that was created using materials like wood, computer circuits, brass and SS sheets. Rakesh has metaphorically used these materials and significantly portrayed our more than 600-year-old walled city of Amdavad. Looking at his work we can barely move forward without feeling the vastness and the richness of the legacy that we truly belong to.
There is a story of Manekbaba and king Ahmed shah out of which this entire concept was shaped. It narrates how king Ahmed Shah tricked Manekbaba out of his own smartness and convinced him to build the teen darwaja and the city. At Teen Darwaja even today it is one muslim family that invariably lights diya every day. The form of Lotus used here symbolizes peace prosperity and unity as our real wealth because of which amdavad flourished. Rakesh has used circuits both in and out of the bottle. The colorful inside of the bottle depicts the old city and how people are large hearted and full of warmth. Contrary to that is the pure white outside of the bottle depicting the ironically developing new urbanized amdavad that somewhere lacks the real warmth and closeness. The true identity of our culturally rich heritage city.
The walls of the bottles are made using the traditional forms of jali for which amdavad’s architecture is known, the forms of these jali’s are very intricate and prominent. He has used the SS on it where the viewer can see his or her own reflection and Leave the viewer with a question to introspect as to what is it that we are doing to preserve and take forward such rich heritage and legacy that we all belong to. And yes the bottle rotates and revolves as it is believed that Lakshmiji has incarnated and is very much here to stay and bless our city and its people then and now.
UNESCO has recently titled amdavad as one of the heritage city, so are we going to nurture and preserve it for our future generations as well? kem k aa che Maru, tamaru, apnu Amdavad.

Bharvi Trivedi 






The inside view 
                                                  Rakesh Patel during his interview
                                                 With Padma Bhushan Shri Jatin Das
                           with Shri Rajiv Gupta, ACS, Forest & Environment, MD, SSNNL
                                                    With Arjun Handa, VC, MD Claris
                          With Education Minister Shri Bhupendrasingh Chudasma & Dr. Gitika Saluja
With Honourable Chief Minister of Gujarat Shri Vijay Rupani and Mayor Smt. Bijal Patel





                                              Times Artfest 2020 Team with the dignitaries


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

ART IS A JOURNEY

    Ronak Sopariwala  "Red means Freedom and Women want Red" , Acrylic on Canvas , 24"x 36 " "The Pyre" , Watercolour on Acid free paper, 18"x 24"  Creativity is all about taking risk be it any form of art. It is an endless journey that does not have a destination. It is a continous urge within which keeps on going that enables an artist to keep on exploring and experimenting with forms, ideas ,materials and much more. It is a language of expressing ones own views through any form of art .   This completely signifies the thought process of Ronak Sopariwala, a visual artist from Ahmedabad. Ronak strongly believes that art is created by an artist and also killed by an artist. Though this seems to be a contradicting statement but it surly emphasis on the process by which any artist works, at times facing conflicts between being creative or being professional or for that matter finding a way out in between, as this ultimately depends on an indiviadua

Gujarati Film "Roll No 56" by Bhavin Trivedi ,tastes its first success

A vision that has given a new breathing space to the Gujarati Cinema. The art of cinema long forgotten is now in safe hands with young Directors like Mr. Bhavin Trivedi, who took the risk that was much required. Today when so many Gujarati films are being made and the entire senario seems to be changing for good, at times it gets difficult for filmmakers to stay true towards the art of film making. Amidst this Director Bhavin Trivedi and the Producers of 99films, a production house in Gujarat took a huge risk by coming up with their first art film "Roll No 56". This film is based on one of the sensitive child issue of our country. Intention being to leave the audience pondering as to why this happens. This film is made considering the world cinema and is being sent at various National and International Film Festivals. The very first international festival it went for was the 4th Indian Cine Film Festival 2016 which was inaugurated on the 18th September 2016 at Mumbai. It was

Art film # bilingual Hindi n Gujarati # World Cinema

"Roll No 56 " - who is Responsible? Family or School ?  An art movie written and directed by Mr Bhavin Trivedi, a young passionate director from Rajkot is truly a must watch. Bhavin studied filmmaking from Banglore and has always believed in the art of Cinema. He looks at it as a medium  of art through which he can bring out the real form of art to the audience in the most subtle way. He believes in being different and thinks out of the box breaking all the conventional ways and being highly creative, as he thinks that True cinema is all about taking risk.    Roll no 56 is about an 11 year old boy, his emotional and mental condition.. It basically addresses an issue which has never been noticed due to various reasons. According to the statistics every year approximately 7 lakh children go missing which is a huge concern. Bhavin has always been deeply concerned about it and had been working on it since past 10 years.   Bhavin says, Real and True Cinema has a language of its ow