Frameworks of fluidity

May’s Artist at Heartfulness Magazine is NEERAJ PATEL. We learn about his approach and career through this spotlight by ANANYA PATEL. 

Neeraj Patel is a multidisciplinary artist from Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. With a background in painting, his work spans multiple mediums and techniques, including drawing, installation, and photography. Based between Vadodara and New Delhi, he has widely exhibited his work in India and abroad, with two solo exhibitions under his belt.

An overarching theme in his work is exploring the boundaries between structured frameworks and free-flowing abstraction. During his early training under a miniature painting artist in Rajasthan, he felt limited by the art form’s strict codes and techniques and went in search of methods that allowed him to break free from tradition. His MFA classes at Shiv Nadar University posed other forms of structure and discipline, placing emphasis on architectural drawing and mathematical precision in creating graphic forms. Drawn to these techniques, Patel created a unique artistic process where he uses a precise framework to guide and ground his abstract visualizations.

All his drawings begin on graph paper, intentional and measured though they may ultimately appear random and free-flowing. He mentions these grids create a sense of structure that allows his hand to explore abstraction through layered frameworks. He says, “Everywhere we go we have disciplines and structures that may not be visible to us, but they form the basis for everyday life, which then flows around us.” This thinking also informs his relationship with technology and how he uses it in his art practice.

Inspired by a “digital reality,” Patel explores the boundaries between the digital and analogue. He is influenced by digital formats and draws cues from coding languages and architectural drawing. Committed to the precision that digital tools facilitate, he explores how technology can help create in ways not feasible by hand. He employs techniques like laser-cutting and modeling to create individual cut out elements from traditional materials, which are worked on by hand and assembled into layered artworks. In these “industrial landscapes” he reflects on how machines can be used, not just in mass production, but to create a piece that is unique, highly considered, and crafted to perfection.

His solo show at Nature Morte in New Delhi encapsulated these ideologies, most notably in a series of metal wall sculptures that he says are an extension of his drawings, “not bound by a frame or any rigid boundary.” He has also completed a residency at Space Studio in Vadodara, to which he attributes his growing competence as an artist, both conceptually and technically. With a permanent studio base in Vadodara, he enjoys being immersed in the creative community built from the city’s Faculty of Fine Arts and its network of artists, designers, studios, and industrial fabricators. He enjoys collaborating across disciplines as well as with local craftspeople to realize new ideas. Patel looks forward to expand his practice to showcase the breadth of his artistic abilities, including more three-dimensional works, site-specific installations and projects involving video and sound.

Artist: NEERAJ PATEL