LOCKDOWN JOURNAL: COVID-19.46 (Raksha Patel)
Raksha Patel: The Gods (2020)
This series of drawings were made during coronavirus lockdown and are based on Henry Moore’s Three Standing Figures, which are based in my immediate locality and stand overlooking the quietness of the lake in Battersea Park. As a local resident I have had a connection with this public artwork (as have many others) and for a while have considered making paintings about them.
Me in Plein Air (2020)
Lockdown has given me the time and the space to spend more time with this sculpture. It stands in an enclosed area of the park, which is surrounded by evergreens on one side and a short fence around the other. The space offers a sense of intimacy, privacy and seclusion, and over the years I have noticed that the types of people who sit near this sculpture and the activities that they partake in are different to the rest of the park in that they are inward and meditative. The sculpture seems to give a sense of silent companionship and comfort to those who are in solitude. I often see single women take up space around these figures to read or to sunbathe, young mothers meet in pairs to catch up at the sculpture’s base, and a lone dog walker rests whilst watching their dog frolic across the lawn. More recently I have had the pleasure of regularly listening to a woman playing her trumpet in the evening shadows cast by these stone figures. The encounter that resonated with me the most was a man who told me that his mothers ashes are scattered around the sculpture as this was her favourite place in the park, and now her presence as dust will be a part of this local landscape forever. I found this quite apt seeing that Moore carved these three women – The Fates - to represent birth, life and death.
Raksha Patel: Modern Deity (2020)
These inanimate women carry a sense of spirit for many and are experienced in a different manner to sculptures that are housed in the gallery space. As these figures are out with the public, they are given an alternative function and purpose by people who engage with them. They were made during a time when Britain was in recovery post second world war. Today in our current climate they offer solace to those of us that are struggling during covid times, giving us reassurance and a sense of escape from this different type of war that we face. Public art has always provided accessibility to art for members of the community that seldom visit galleries and museums, they become an artwork for the people.
Three Standing Figures overlooking the lake at sunset Photo: Raksha Patel (2020)
My interest in transforming these three stone women into deities possibly comes from seeing them afresh through the lens of ‘covid climate’ anxiety. These post-war rock statues that gaze out over still water and into the horizon appear to have a sense of knowing what our fate might be post-pandemic. Their elegant yet solid stance with unwavering bodies are a symbol of resistance, beings that stand the test of time and defy turbulent weather.
Raksha Patel: The Deities (2020)
My decision to paint and draw ‘Plein Air’ was happenstance as I currently lack access to a printer (a machine that I am reliant on as an artist). This unique period with its lack of resources takes me back to the 90’s to my camera-less student days where I would rely on my own hand to document through drawing. The experience of scrutinising these statues in the bright sunlight reveal elements that I had not noticed before. I saw tiny holes that were delicately carved by Moore into the figure’s ears, which equally could have been bored by the beaks of the many birds that sit on the sculpture’s heads. A circular hole in one of the women’s hands reflects absence, or it could be that her palm patiently awaits an ethereal light to fill it.
Raksha Patel: The Deities (in the Sub-Tropical Gardens) (2020)
As the lockdown days and the weeks have gone by my relationship with the Three Standing Figures shifts and alters; an imaginative narrative comes into play, which takes these figures into the neighbouring regions of the park such as the sub-tropical gardens or onto the local housing estate, attaching their feminine forms to the culture and the identity of Battersea.
Raksha Patel is a London based artist and teaches BA Painting at Camberwell Art College.
She exhibited at BasementArtsProject in 2015 as part of Roadside Museum curated by Gordon Culshaw & John O Hare