Born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Manu Parekh’s (b. 1939) artistic talent was noticed while he was in school by his art teacher who inspired him take up painting seriously. He received his formal training in art at the Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay. A bold painter, Parekh confronts the viewer by what he claims to be a “combination of unexpected and planned”.

His surreal landscapes are fecund and fertile expressing charged imagery of fantastical organisms, part-bird-part-woman-part vegetation; growing in and out of one another. His raw and jagged imagery of brutalised men and animals is well known and his series on the infamous case of the Bhagalpur blindings in Bihar are haunting. Parekh has always preferred to use the imagery of butchered animals, as a symbol of the violent times we live in today. However, his current work suggests, that the artist is re-exploring his past series of landscapes.