Sudhir Patwardhan’s grim and portentous paintings represent (as opposed to document) an ever-expanding Mumbai/Bombay that swallows up open spaces, nature, even the sky, and its pullulating underclasses. His works represent the viciousness and toxicity of urban life and the profound melancholy, isolation, and violence engendered by it. To quote Gyan Prakash’s Mumbai Fables, Patwardhan’s “local lifeworlds” are “thick with specific experiences, practices, imaginations and memories”. However, Patwardhan’s vision extends to all Indian metro cities.
Over the years, Patwardhan’s earlier cacophonous paintings with their firmly contoured jostling figures, buildings, railway stations, intrusive flyovers, and the endless favela in solid, dark shades have given way to quieter, flimsier greys and phantom-like human beings. He evokes a more personal space now. His initial faith in the power of the leftist ideology to ameliorate the lot of humankind has mutated into a sadder humanism as Patwardhan, who worked as a radiologist from 1975 to 2005, positions himself as an observer.
