Manoj Darekar
Pune
Manoj Gorakshanath Darekar (1992) received his Master's in Fine Arts from Bharti Vidyapeeth College of Fine Arts in Pune. His favoured medium is acrylic on canvas. Darekar's practice is a means to engage with the ongoing dialogues on psychology, where he renders a meaningful interpretation of the subject. He defines his engagement in the realm of pareidolia, where he tries to find faces on objects and places. In his words, he tries to find faces in whatever he sees. This language of faces helps Darekar engage with human emotions, which in turn enables him to portray them to the world he cohabits. It is almost as if the artist wants to place emotional intelligence in everything to achieve an emotional response or reception.
Darekar believes that as human beings, we are constantly in the act of interaction. Communication is an integral part of living, and the inability to communicate can be stifling. Therefore, his engagement with faces is an active emotional response to his surroundings. His face is a way of traveling through time when he is able to recollect his experiences magically. He finds his art as a means to conjure a world that's easily, at once, miraculous and safe.
