Prakash Patel was born in New Zealand
in 1968. Since graduating with a Diploma in Visual Arts and Design
at Hawkes Bay Polytechnic in 1993, he has exhibited widely in New
Zealand.
Patel's incorporation of emblems and
techniques evocative of traditional Indian culture-making within
the modern constraints of the painted canvas stem from his
experiences as an Indian growing up in conservative Wanganui;
painting providing Patel with a way of expressing a sense of
cultural dislocation and the gulf between his Gujarati background
and the culture of 1970's New Zealand.
Patel's paintings make expressive use
of colour and pattern, achieved through a meticulously restrained
dot technique underpinned by a desire for artistic experimentation.
In the
repetitious fading of bright, iridescent colours into the dark,
inky background that saturates his works, Patel creates a rippling,
rhythmic energy and a sense of these organic forms moving through
the dimensionality of the image. The result is twofold: a
repetitive and ultimately hypnotic emphasis of space within the
bounds of the canvas and a direct allusion to the intricacy,
colour, spiritual and mystical themes of Indian culture - the
result of Patel's expression of cultural affinity within the
structure of contemporary NZ painting.
Patel is also the creator of site-specific installation works,
such as the 280 panel Satellite at The Globe Gallery in
Napier. He has been an annual finalist in the James Wallace Trust
Art Awards, and in January 2006 he took up the Sanskriti Residency
in Delhi, India. He continues to live in Wanganui.