Madhvi Parekh lived by the sea in Bombay from 1962-64, and in Calcutta from 1964-75, yet it was in landlocked Delhi where she painted Animal in the Sea. Its motivation lay in storytelling for her young daughters for whom she created an imaginary universe, recalling for them the time when the family lived close to the sea. Like her terrestrial world, Parekh resorts to the fabular in which the large creature—its arms akimbo, open in embrace—might well be herself, her maternal world peopled with toys and dolls. The interior dialect of life and forms was her way of communicating the inter-dependency of nurturing relationships in which no creature, or sentiment, was more powerful than others.
published references
Singh, Kishore, ed., Madhvi Parekh | The Curious Seeker (New Delhi: DAG, 2017), p. 114 Tillotson, Giles, Singh, Primitivism and Modern Indian Art (New Delhi: DAG, 2019), p. 383 Singh, Kishore, ed., Ways of Seeing: Women Artists | Women as Muse (New Delhi: DAG, 2021), p. 72 A Place in the Sun: Women Artists from 20th Century India (New Delhi: DAG, 2021), p. 40
Madhvi Parekh
Animal in the Sea
1978
Oil and acrylic on canvas
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Madhvi Parekh
Animal in the Sea
1978
Oil and acrylic on canvas
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