Madhvi Parekh

Born in Sanjaya, Gujarat in 1942, Madhvi is a self-trained contemporary artist who began painting in 1964 with the encouragement of her husband, Manu Parekh, who is also an artist. Madhvi's childhood memories of folklore and fantasies from her village upbringing inspired her paintings, which are infused with motifs from traditional everyday rituals, folk legends, women's craft, and Indian myths. While her inspirations are from rural India, her work also carries influences from surrealism and expressionism, which she studied informally with legends like Joan Miro and Paul Klee. Her drawings are naively charmed with the specific stylization of figures, flexible compositions, flat surfaces, and raw lines. With a miniaturist approach to placing figures and decorative elements in and around the canvas space, the visuals resemble folk and objects from the village. Madhvi decisively shifted from traditional folk art mediums to oils, acrylics, and watercolor. Design elements drive Madhvi's paintings, with rhythm and repetition being a driving force. Her work talks about the encounters between rural and urban life in an abstract orientation, and her paintings go unplanned, narrating stories that unfold as the artist adapts to the scale of the artwork demanded. Madhvi has been exhibiting her work all over the world since 1972, with over one hundred solo and group shows. She has received several awards, including the National Award from the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in 1979, a Residency fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Centre in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the Whirlpool Women's Achievement Award in the field of Fine Art in 2003. More recently, Madhvi and Manu Parekh, collaborated with the House of Dior, and artisans from the Chanakya School of Craft, to create a series of artworks for the Paris Haute Couture Week in 2022. The artworks translated into detailed pieces of life-sized embroidery works by the artisans served as a great backdrop in contrast to the models draped in whites, creating a one-of-a-kind collaboration between Indian art & craftsmanship and French couture. The resulting panels were highly evocative, made with organic colours and fibres. The artworks in the exhibition oscillate between figuration and abstraction, with feminine and masculine energies intermingling. The artists draw inspiration from the meditative spirit of working with their hands and show respect for Indian craftspeople. These artworks were recently also featured and displayed in India at Mul Mathi, an exclusive Dior exhibition in Mumbai, which brought the 22 tapestries accompanied by a selection of paintings by Madhvi and Manu Parekh that inspired the project. You can browse through our gallery of Serigraphs to see more of her artworks and paintings along with other famous serigraph artists.