Manu Parekh’s canvases pulse with theatrical energy, spiritual resonance, and a deep-rooted connection to the cultural and emotional landscapes of India. Born in 1939 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Parekh’s journey into modern Indian art began with a strong foundation in the visual and performing arts. Trained at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai, he also engaged with the National School of Drama early in his career, an experience that profoundly shaped his understanding of space, gesture, and emotional intensity. These elements continue to animate his painting with a dynamic visual rhythm.

In the early 1960s, Parekh transitioned from the stage to the design world, joining the Weavers’ Service Centre in Mumbai under the leadership of Pupul Jayakar. His transfer to Kolkata in 1965 proved transformative. Immersed in a city marked by political unrest and spiritual density, Parekh responded with works that reflected internal conflict, metaphysical inquiry, and a growing awareness of India’s layered realities. His eventual move to New Delhi in 1974 allowed for deeper experimentation and sustained engagement with painting as his primary focus. A central thread in Parekh’s work is his engagement with Varanasi, a city he has returned to repeatedly across decades. For him, its simultaneous celebration of life and confrontation with death becomes a profound visual metaphor. The architectural density, spiritual rituals, and visceral contradictions of the city are distilled into expressionist forms, bold color fields, and symbolic structures. His compositions evoke ritual and rupture alike, offering viewers spaces that resonate with both vitality and existential tension.

His palette, often dominated by intense reds, yellows, and blacks, mirrors the emotional gravity of his themes. Yet Parekh’s work resists any singular reading. It holds within it a multiplicity of moods, celebration, mourning, questioning, renewal, each emerging through the layering of color, texture, and line. These paintings do not illustrate but evoke, drawing viewers into a world shaped by emotional complexity and spiritual seeking. Parekh’s partnership with his wife, artist Madhvi Parekh, forms a deeply rooted creative alliance that has enriched the Indian art landscape. Together, they have nurtured a legacy of independent vision and cultural depth. With a practice spanning over sixty years, Manu Parekh continues to engage with the metaphysical undercurrents of life, offering works that are as vital as they are reflective.