British Council Collection
Talking Sweepers 2014
Amol Patil
Details
- Dimension
- 15 x 19.5 cm
- Media
- 5 colour screenprint
- Accession number
- P8568/6
Summary
Amol Patil was born in Mumbai in 1987. Patil’s practice ranges from performance to video, drawing, painting and installation. The performances in particular refer to his family’s longstanding relationship with theatre and his current work explores renditions of plays written by his late father (both an avant-garde playwright and an employee of Bombay Municipal Corporation). Creating fabrics, jackets and skins during and as part of his live performances, Patil is fascinated by contemporary life in India and has stated that he wishes to explore the more superficial aspects of brand identity, fashion, mall culture and Bollywood in his work.
‘Patil’s residency, in July 2014, resulted in a suite of 16 screenprinted images based upon poems written 50 years ago by his grandfather, combined with drawings by the artist. They bring together various elements of his work, in particular our perceptions of aging, of our bodies and our personal objects, and also our perception of skin.’[i]
Below another sky was the first collaborative programme developed by the Scottish Print Network, a partnership between Dundee Contemporary Arts, Edinburgh Printmakers, Glasgow Print Studio, Highland Print Studio, Inverness and Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen.
10 artists from Scotland and 10 from Commonwealth countries were invited to undertake research residencies during 2013 and 2014. Artists from Scotland travelled to Antigua, Baffin Bay, Bangladesh, Canada, India, New Zealand and Zambia; artists from Australia, Canada, India and Pakistan were on residency in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness.
Each artist worked with one of the five print studios on the development of ambitious and innovative new work in print, taking full advantage of the excellent range of resources, equipment and expertise available through each organisation.
Below another sky takes its name from the poem ‘Travel’, published in 1865 by the Edinburgh-born author Robert Louis Stevenson.
[i] John McNaught, Highland Print Studio
Glossary
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Contemporary
Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.
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Drawing
The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.
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Installation
An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.
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Painting
Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.
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Video
Images recorded on videotape or on optical disc to be viewed on television screens, or projected onto screens. The medium through which these images are recorded and displayed.