Shanti Panchal

The Katie Lindsay Gallery is excited to announce Shanti Panchal’s first exhibition in Ireland of 18 watercolours of varying sizes.

Panchal defines his painting technique:  “I use watercolour on thick, rough paper; applying many layers; mixing colours directly on the paper, scratching and scraping.“ 

It’s a slow process resulting in textured, velvet-like surfaces.

With peerless craftsmanship the artist combines the old with the new citing influences from Indian miniaturist painting, Buddhist frescoes and medieval Christian icons; Mark Rothko’s large abstract colour fields and the candied backdrops of Francis Bacon.

Each work demonstrates a subtle blending of the poetic forces from two cultures; east and west; he combines different aesthetic values i.e. the symbolism of Jain miniature paintings with western art styles like abstract expressionism. 

In the larger works his figures occupy empty theatrical spaces. A vacant chair or a bulk of a wall serve, not only as pictorial devices, to point to something; an absence maybe or ‘a void.’ All this conjuring urgent, timely questions about our identities, nationhood and sense of belonging: Where is home? Do we carry our homes with us? Does home reside in our imagination? 

Panchal was born in 1951 in North Gujarat, Mesar ; a small village in India. In 1978, after completing five years of study at the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai where he trained in western art and Indian miniatures, he won a British Council award to study for two years at the Byam Shaw School of Art in the UK. 

His talents were soon acknowledged. 1980’s London was entering a radical mood and with the New Labour government’s drive to be inclusive he was commissioned by the GLC ( Greater London Council ) to make a pro-diversity mural celebrating Asian and Black culture alongside (Turner Prize winner 2017 / Tate Modern 2022) Lubiana Hamid, Gavin Jantjes and Keith Piper ; only Panchal’s mural survives.   

In 2022 a second major public art work was commissioned from the artist by Art on The Underground , TFL for Brixton station and launched on the 17th of November 2022.

Shanti Panchal is a recipient of many prizes including the BP Portrait award in 1991, The prestigious John Moores Prize , twice, in 1989 and 2018 . He has been artist in residence at the British museum in 1994 and held solo shows at The Museum of Modern Art Oxford 1993, Pitzhanger Manor in 2000 and Chelmsford Museum 2007 and more recently with the Ben Uri 2020; to mention only a few.