Madhvi Parekh

Iconic artist Madhvi Parekh’s paintings are influenced by her childhood memories, present environment and global consciousness. Her works unfold organically, evolving like stories that adapt to the scale they demand, growing from a single point into expansive narratives. Raised in the village of Sanjaya, Gujarat, Parekh was immersed in folk traditions, such as rangoli designs, rituals, and local legends, which shaped her early artistic sensibility. Self-taught, she began painting in 1964, encouraged by her husband, artist Manu Parekh, who gifted her a book on Paul Klee’s drawing exercises. This sparked her artistic career, blending folk motifs, mythical figures and imaginary characters in both figurative and abstract forms. Her works feature rhythmic repetition of geometric shapes—dots, lines, circles, and triangles—drawing comparisons to Paul Klee’s style, while fantastical creatures signal Joan Miró’s influence. Traditional Indian art forms, like Kalamkari and Pichwai, also inform her compositions, with main figures centrally positioned and secondary elements occupying the borders. Parekh captures folklore, personal history, and universal themes of life and imagination. A documentary on the Parekh couple, Dwity, was made in 1992, and a retrospective of her work has been shown in New Delhi, Mumbai, and New York.