Born in Surat in 1957, Ankit Patel received a post-diploma in creative sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M S University Baroda in 1983. Ankit Patel’s sculpture reflects many cross-currents. There is a flowing linearity that gives his figures life and motion, coupled with the interplay of vertical, horizontal and circular forms in the tradition of high modernism. His sculptural musings make solid matter move in a curvaceous form evoking emotion with their interplay of figurative and textured abstract.

As a sculptor, Ankit has travelled a long journey, from Gujarat to Rajasthan with nostalgic intervention, to look back and explore the influx of visual culture down from the childhood lanes to the present day. His native village, Mota Varachha, gives him his imagination and his thirty-four years affiliation with Rajasthan, allowed him to explore the material culture, craft of carving and rich heritage of Rajasthan. He has confidently assimilated the locally found material with the intricacies of traditional sculptures produced by the skilled artisan community of the region.

Ankit has experimented with many mediums, finally finding his creative satisfaction in cast metal. In his bronzes one finds a powerful understanding of the close interrelation of the figurative and nonfigurative in art. He has chosen to explore the limits to which the human body can stretch itself to reach the ultimate point. As one goes from one sculpture to another, the corollary transforms. The bodily movement, the effort to reach the final point physically, acquires a different dimension and emerges gradually, as a symbol of the human spirit. With this conversion every postural movement frozen in a sculpture becomes universal. In the ultimate analysis, it is almost like life itself hangs in balance in these sculptures. Through his work, Ankit Patel gives full play to viewers’ imagination by choosing his subjects from everyday life.

In ‘Musings’, Ankit Patel exhibits a shift where the image of the wheel takes centre stage. His lyrical style can be defined in terms of circular movements, round strokes or flow that moves, connects and ends in circles. The wheel moves through phases of life, taking on different meanings, telling a different story, and always conveying an intensity that is synonymous with change, progression, and completeness that stems from constant incompleteness.

With four decades of creating motion, and holding moments a in his ‘cast’, Ankit Patel’s works emerge from the mastery he has over lines and what they say. Thus, the feeling of bronze suddenly becomes liquid. In his hands, the hard metal becomes pliable and supple and the artist breathes life in it.