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Snow and rain lateMagazine
Admiring the body beautiful
by Conrad Astley19/ 5/2005
THE Sacred Bodies exhibition features the work of
Nottingham-based Hetain Patel, based around his struggle as a
second generation British Indian, to understand his own cultural
heritage. The pieces, many of which have not been exhibited before,
are photographs of himself after he has decorated his body with
traditional Indian pastes.
In some photographs he has written across his body, while in others
he has painted images using henna or kanku paste.
But while these are traditionally used to decorate small parts of
the body, often as part of wedding ceremonies, he has used them as
paints covering his entire torso.
Bolton-born Hetain says the work is based around the lack of
understanding he has for his own inherited culture.
He said: "The idea is to try to study this idea of a cultural
heritage through the materials that are used.
"I'm trying to progress this idea of Indianness. As someone who has
been born and brought up in this country it's very hard to get a
grip on what it means to be Indian, and most of it is based on what
I've been told by my parents.
"There's almost no route which I can go down to try to get a grasp
of it."
Hetain had a good response from an article about his work in an
Asian magazine.
But it was difficult to get many people from his community
interested, as they did not tend to visit art galleries.
He said: "Asian culture is something that's been under represented
in this country.
"Things have started to change a lot in TV and films, but not in
the art world. It's still difficult to get people to come to an art
gallery."
The exhibition is running at the
Waterside Arts
Centre in Sale until May 28.
Hetain will also lead a traditional body-painting workshop for
children on Saturday (May 21) followed by a talk about his
work.
Ticket office 912 5616
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