Deities, Demons, and Dudes with ’Staches

How would you respond if you were asked to have a solo show at a major San Francisco museum? Sanjay Patel, animator at Pixar and author and illustrator, responded, “That would be sweet!” Originally asked to “activate the exterior of the building,” Patel conceived of the idea to create cartoon-like illustrations inspired by the Indian miniature paintings featured in Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts, currently on view at the Asian Art Museum.¹ Initially envisioning his colorful figures plastered to all four sides of the museum, Patel thought, “This is totally boner worthy.”² Although his plans for the museum’s exterior fell through due to complications with the city, Patel edited his idea for the interior of the Asian Art Museum.

For Patel, the artistic process always begins with pencil and paper. Researching and sketching for months, he creates a sketch that is a dialogue between past and present, as it reveals his contemplation of the Indian miniature. Maharaja sketches (2011), mounted on the museum wall in its South Court, depicts imagery of the royal court. Through exhibiting the origins of Patel’s artistic process, the works in Maharaja become relatable, stimulating a viewer to engage in her own conversation with the work.

The discourse between present and past is furthered in Patel’s Maharaja procession (2011), which is inspired by depictions of the royal procession in Indian miniatures such as Procession of Ram Sing II of Kota and His Son at Kota (1850), both featured in the Maharaja exhibition.

Sanjay Patel, Maharaja procession, 2011;digital output. Courtesy of the Artist.

 Symbolic of the concept of darshan, the procession is a portal into the world of the maharaja.³ Patel emulates the typical rendering of the grand procession in works like Procession of Ram Sing II of Kota and His Son at Kota by depicting the king atop an elephant and surrounded by the splendors of the court. Re-creating the Indian miniature in a large-scale mural using digital illustration, Patel’s work reactivates the past. A “marriage between South East Asian iconography and a modern aesthetic,” Patel’s reinterpretation is simple and approachable.⁴

Sanjay Patel’s work makes traditional Southeast Asian culture and art accessible to all. Maharaja sketches and Maharaja procession are just a taste of Deities, Demons, and Dudes with ’Staches: Indian Avatars by Sanjay Patel, which juxtaposes iconic Southeast Asian sculpture and painting with Patel’s modern reincarnations. Fusing traditional and pop imagery, Patel reinterprets the maharaja for an audience of all ages and backgrounds.

Deities, Demons, and Dudes with ‘Staches: Indian Avatars by Sanjay Patel is on view at the Asian Art Museum, in San Francisco, through April 22, 2012.

Charlotte Miller is the Assistant Director at Brian Gross Fine Art and part of the research team at Pier 24 Photography. Miller graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Art History in 2008 and from the San Francisco Art Institute with a M.A. in Exhibition and Museum Studies in 2011. She is a finalist for the ACAC Writing Fellowship.

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NOTES:

1. Interview with Sanjay Patel, November 7, 2011.

2. Ibid.

3. “The propitious act of seeing and being seen by a superior being, whether a god or king.” Anna Jackson, Amin Jaffer, Deepika Ahlawat, Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts, (VA Publishing, 2009), 14.

4. Interview with Sanjay Patel, November 7, 2011.