Signed, dated, titled and inscribed 'Manu Parekh / Starry Night / 5' x 5' / Acrylic on canvas / 2015 (on the reverse)

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Dubai

"In the heart of India's spiritual home, with its cycle of life and death, Banaras evokes learning in a metaphysical sense, that motif turning into an endeavour for artist's looking for a muse in what historian Diana Eck epithised as the city of light. Manu Parekh uses that light like an evangelist. His riverine landscapes of the city, and of its interiors, capture the moment when the sky is an indistinct hue that he evokes magically as pink now, green later, a piercing yellow elsewhere, or a blue of so many varying cyans you couldn't imagine there were as many shades in nature's repertoire. The light that rules the skies is tentative on the grounds of Banaras, not knowing what to make of the spires and steeples of this city of temples, the cupolas and domes creating strong silhouettes [...] Manu returns to his Banaras series with Van Gogh's Starry Night as an inspiration. The bright stars in the sky shining over Banaras blends perfectly in the landscape filled with temples, with the drama of enlightenment and knowledge, of worship and supplication, of lament and prayer which remains unbroken. In combining the light from the skies with that from the temples, Manu Parekh's canvases dwell simultaneously on the celestial and the temporal. His paintings is the singular voice in Banaras that responds to both the magic and the light to create an impression of a spiritual city drowned in a cacophony of sound and light. He might not paint it, but under the guise of that poignant moment lies chaos. The light over the city obscures it for one magical moment. It is of that magical moment that Manu Parekh is a magnificent interloper." […] (Kishore Singh, Manu Parekh: City of Magical Light, Gallery Art & Soul, 2014, pg. 4-5)