Light Forms - Prakash Patel

To end the year and welcome the next, Zimmerman Art Gallery's summer exhibition is "Light Forms" by Whanganui artist Prakash Patel.

For Patel, each new painting is an adventure of exploration, experimentation and discovery.

“I've always been fascinated by nature and its complexity. You can look up into space, and it goes on and on. The same thing happens when you look through a microscope - there’s actually no point where it ends, it goes back into infinity again.”

Working across several canvasses at the same time, Patel paints in a spontaneous manner, enabling each work to evolve intuitively.

“I would say I’m not religious, but there’s something about painting that has a kind of spiritual aspect. The act of painting becomes almost like praying, or a devotion to God. And then something happens, after a while, where you start to feel like the planets are lining up and everything starts to make sense.”

“I’m always searching for that moment: when everything makes sense and is connected, from the microscopic world to the cosmos.”