Parthiv

The Painting

Parthiv 1: A warm ochre-brown ground is covered with broken vertical and irregular stitched marks in pale and blue-grey tones. Some areas are densely worked while others remain open, allowing the colour of the textile to show through. The scattered marks resemble fragments of vegetation, weathering or a field seen from a distance. Rather than forming a single central motif, the embroidery creates an atmospheric surface through accumulation. The contemporary treatment lies in this shift from decorative pattern to an expressive field of texture and fragmented marks. Parthiv 2: The image is organised through a gradual change from a dense, textured upper field to a much lighter lower area. Fine horizontal marks dominate the darker section, while the bottom opens into an almost empty pale space. This transition gives the work the quality of a horizon, a receding landscape or a surface gradually being erased. The subtle variation in stitch density is important: the image is created less through a drawn outline and more through the accumulation and withdrawal of tiny stitches. Parthiv 3: Black, brown and ochre marks are dispersed across a pale ground, with a dense horizontal cluster forming the main visual focus. Smaller stitched passages appear around it like fragments breaking away from a larger form. The combination of rough, distressed areas and controlled repeated stitches creates a strong contrast between painterly texture and embroidery. The work uses the needle as a drawing tool, allowing individual marks to remain visible while building a larger abstract composition. Parthiv 4: A dark ground carries several horizontal bands of warm, metallic-looking stitches, with smaller clusters of marks emerging above and below them. The strong contrast between the dark textile and the lighter thread makes the stitches appear almost like lines of light. The bands interrupt the field without dividing it completely, creating a layered sense of distance. Repetition is central to the work: hundreds of small needle marks accumulate into larger passages, turning embroidery into a visual language of rhythm and atmosphere. Parthiv 5: The composition is divided into two distinct stitch systems: compact horizontal lines across the upper portion and long vertical passages below. This simple structural division gives the work an architectural quality, almost like a wall, curtain or built landscape. The lower section is deliberately restrained, with fine lines descending through the cloth and creating subtle variations in density. The piece demonstrates how a traditional embroidery technique can generate a contemporary abstract composition through nothing more than direction, repetition and spacing. Parthiv 6: A central branching form rises through a blue-grey field, spreading into multiple pale limbs or leaves. The surrounding areas are filled with small, closely placed stitches that contrast with the broader, more open branches. The form suggests a tree or plant without being rendered as a conventional botanical image. Its significance comes from the relationship between growth and stitch: each branch is built from accumulated marks, making the process of embroidery visible as part of the image itself. Parthiv 7: This work is dominated by a geometric arrangement of white stitches on a brown ground. Horizontal, vertical and diagonal passages overlap to create bands that bend and shift direction across the surface. The repeated stitches give the image the appearance of woven structures, grids or architectural plans, although the irregular edges keep it firmly handmade. The work brings the repetitive discipline of embroidery into a more abstract, spatial language, where the direction of each stitch determines the movement of the composition. Parthiv 8: The pale ground is animated by loose clusters of grey stitches concentrated around the centre and lower half of the composition. The marks are small and varied, sometimes gathering into dense patches and sometimes dissolving into the background. They create an impression of foliage, scattered debris or a natural surface without settling into a single identifiable image. The work relies on accumulation: individual stitches remain modest, but together they create a shifting, atmospheric field. Parthiv 9: A dark, vertically textured ground is interrupted by numerous pale and metallic-toned stitched passages. The embroidery is arranged in vertical groups of different heights and densities, producing an image that can suggest a distant skyline, vegetation or light falling through a dark environment. The irregular rhythm prevents the vertical forms from becoming literal. Here the strength of the work comes from contrast—dark cloth against reflective thread, dense passages against open space, and repeated stitches against an otherwise atmospheric ground.