A Gallery of Human Darkness

Mumbai mascot Sudhir Patwardhan returns with a haunting body of work that's darker than anything he's done before

- By SHAIKH AYAZ

For over five decades, Sudhir Patwardhan has ardently championed the proletariat in his art. It is hard to imagine another artist who has captured the struggles, dreams and dilemmas of urban existence with such a penetrating and sympathetic gaze, constantly poking us in the ribs to remind us what it means to be human. In a painting called Aspire, we see three commuters on a local train lost in thought as the railway footbridge above teems with people at peak hour. Roadside Tales shows residents of a slum sharing space with humans and zooming cars, while Gateway to the Future perfectly underlines the chasm between modernity and reality. Born in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, these works characterise Patwardhan's ongoing artistic evolution as he searches for a language that will allow him to continue describing the world around him as boldly and truthfully while remaining faithful to the dictates of figurative art.