Celebrating the fabric of life
Saroj Patel’s first solo exhibition in Wakefield’s Art House is a host of colour, texture and pattern inspired by her Indian heritage. Catherine Scott meets her. Pictures by Tony Johnson.
WHEN Saroj Patel walked into the Art House in Wakefield and saw her monumental textile sculptures in place together for the first time she admits she cried. “It has taken me a long time to get here and it was really emotional especially that my first solo show was in the north and my parents could be there.”
The British Indian textile artist draws on ritualistic and cultural traditions to create sculptures that celebrate community, Indian culture and her personal upbringing. Her debut solo project presents large-scale hanging sculptures suspended from the ceiling that present stories that expand on ritualistic practices, myths, Indian astrology, migration, race, identity and gender.
Interwoven, Patel’s first major solo exhibition, also offers visitors the opportunity to see brandnew work co-created in collaboration with local Wakefield residents and members of The Art House’s Studio of Sanctuary. An awardee of the
Haribo Togetherness Grant, Patel created family workshops offering the chance to explore what togetherness means, whilst learning about each other’s cultures and traditions.
“I’m passionate about working with communities and I’ve done so throughout my career,” says Patel. “I originally applied to the Art House to do work with their refugees and asylum seekers. I am really interested in migration because of my parents. I was lucky enough to be chosen and that’s how I got to know the Art House curator Amelia [Baron] who saw my work and said she thought it would be amazing to have it as a solo show.
“I was really pleased. I’ve been doing a lot of shared exhibitions in London, but I am from the north and so it was so nice that my first solo show was up north. It meant my parents and my husband’s parents could come.”
Growing up a woman in a British Indian family in the north, there weren’t many opportunities for her to follow her creative passion, she says. “I was always really artistic and my art teacher at school was really encouraging and said I should continue, but I had