Saroj Patel

Artist Statement

Saroj Patel's practice explores the contrasting and sometimes conflicting identities of a British Indian artist. She draws on the ritualistic practices and cultural traditions that have long influenced her and while Patel's sculptures are a celebration of Indian culture and community, they are also a way to address her own relationship with my upbringing. Growing up in the UK, surrounded by a large Indian community, Patel has always been drawn to the aesthetics and ritualistic elements of traditional ceremonies, but has also felt a tussle between two conflicting ways of life, finding herself struggling to meet all expectations. As a woman, she experienced the pressure of trying to embody two starkly different gender expectations. In Patel's practice she attempts to find an empowered space to connect with these visceral aspects of her heritage and explore the joys and challenges of growing up as a woman between cultures. Patel works with a range of materials rooted in Indian traditions as well as found items to create structure. Working intuitively, she creates organic shapes with materials such as Sari fabric, bells, glass beads, old clothes, steel, and ceramic beans. Texture is woven throughout her sculptures with delicate folds of fabric and elaborate bead work. Patel often creates site-specific pieces, taking her cue from the environment that will house the work. Patel's sculptures present imagined stories that expand on ritualistic practices, myths, Indian astrology, migration, race, identity and gender. She questions rigid ideas of ethnic identity through a fluid and open-minded exploration of her own experience and others.

https://sarojpatel.com/