Designs in movement

Sculptor Ankit Patel shows his fascination with kinetics. Francis H D’Sa explains

When Ankit Patel was eight years old, he demanded a bicycle from his parents — or else he would not do his exams, he said.

They didn’t give in...and neither did he.

Born into a farming family at Motavarachha, a small village on the bank of the Tapti river in Gujarat, Patel has always been fascinated by village life and the progress his people have made with the help of the wheel, which they take for granted.

This private experience over 30 years the artist has tried to make universal, through sculptures and drawings where, almost always, the wheel is the central protagonist.

“I have always experimented with different mediums like wood, stone and bronze. In my post diploma studies, I worked on kinetic sculptures on wood,” says Patel.

“I am always fascinated with moving things. Earlier I did some work inspired by the top, the firki, charkhi and weathercock. I created kinetic works in copper and brass using traditional techniques of making domestic vessels for kitchen.”

His last exhibition, The Force Within was about the movement of the ball, which also represented the universe.

In Yatra se Journey Tak, Patel has continued to explore his fascination with movement, with the wheel as a metaphor. “I have tried to produce movement through static sculptures,” he says.

His bronzes show people from his village doing their daily chores with enthusiasm. There is simplicity and freedom in his quaint works, be it a tailor at his sewing machine, a knife sharpener, children doing a  balancing act or a tired couple holding hands, each piece is sheer joy to behold.

In Wheeling for Fun (28”x20”x20”) a child is shown playing with a thread running through a wheel. There is exuberance that runs through the arch of the child’s back, the tilt of his jaw, the rhythm of the moving wheel.

Clean, simple lines and subtle texture on the metal suggest sensitivity and a life simply lived.

From the bullock cart, to the cycle, to the ‘wheel’ in the computer mouse,  for Ankit Patel, the wheel of life has come full circle. And, no, Patel does not ride a bicycle any more.

Yatra se Journey Tak, Gallery Art and  Soul, January 15-February 8