London-based Hetain Patel returns for his fifth solo at Chatterjee & Lal with a series of paintings and carpet works. Now entering the third decade of his practice, he remains committed to a multidisciplinary approach and this is his first time presenting a show of paintings in India, following a return to drawing during the Covid-related lockdowns of recent years.
Continuing to introduce the autobiographical into his work, these paintings take their aesthetic cues from two important memories, both planted during the artist’s childhood growing up in the UK: the first is the gleaming black car paint applied to the hearses that Patel’s father produced in his company’s garage workshop; the second – carpet patterns popular during the 1970s – stems from a carpet belonging to his late grandmother Lakshmiben Patel, affectionately called “Baa” (“Mother” in Gujarati) by all of his family. Followers of Patel’s work may recognise the predominant carpet pattern from his existing photography works (Baa’s House, 2015), films (The Jump, 2015) and performances (Baa’s Gold 10, 2021). For Patel, the paintings and carpet pieces are repeated attempts to keep alive that which is fading. In recent years he has been concerned with the loss of first-generation immigrants in diaspora communities as they grow older and pass away.
Baa and her family emigrated from Gujarat, North India, via Kenya to the northern UK city of Bolton in 1967. There, a large Victorian terrace building became home to several generations of Patels, including Hetain – until his parents were able to move into a home of their own. This cross-generational household formed an important marker during the artist’s early years and created a special bond between him, his family, and the house; a bond that continued even after Baa’s passing and the subsequent sale of the property. Details of the house and its inhabitants are brought back to life in this exhibition. The images on the boards reproduce photographs from the Patel family archive, using geometrical lines and carpet patterns from Baa’s house. The photographic source material of the works date from the early 1970s until the late 2010s.
In keeping with Patel’s approach to the mediums he employs, we are invited into a visual language that is both familiar and unexpected in the context of gallery spaces. Visible brush strokes of figurative paintings sit somewhat uneasily with the industrial high gloss of automotive paint, giving a mirror finish that implicates viewers within Patel’s domestic scenes, either as visitors or, even, intruders. Indeed, introducing painting of any kind here is a potential a smokescreen, as the works are more closely related to domestic photography than the canon of Western art history that formed the basis of the artist’s training.
Patel’s family have always avidly documented their own history in the UK, with thousands of almost identical configurations of birthdays, weddings and other family gatherings. Taking photographs, and arranging their display, during the analogue era was a way of marking a family’s existence. Today with digital photography feeling more disposable, Patel employs a medium that continues to command cultural relevance. These painted transformations of his family are tangible objects that speak of a particular time in history, whilst their mirror-like surfaces, by their very nature, reflect the present.
On view:
9 March – 22 April
2023