Hetain Patel; (born 1980) is an English visual artist specializing in performance, sculpture, video, and photography. His work has been exhibited in Norway, India, Belgium, and throughout the UK.

Early life

Patel was born and raised in a working class British Gujarati Asian household in Bolton, England. He was subjected to racial abuse from his wider community, and found “just walking from the house to the car was difficult.”^[1]

As a child Patel developed a keen interest in superhero movies, playing as Spider-man in his grandmother's house. Patel was eager to conceal his ethnic identity using the Spider-man mask stating: “...what I wanted to be most when I grew up was white.”^[1][2]

Work

In addition to sci-fi and mainstream influenced works, (including work associated with pop-culture superheroes such as Spider-man^[3]), Patel experiments with addressing problems of multiculturalism and self-acceptance.^[4]

The alienation and racial abuse Patel suffered growing up motivates him to produce inclusive art, that uplifts and appreciates marginalised groups. As Patel became older a major inspiration was his father, who worked at a day job converting cars, inspiring him to create his first sculpture. Patel converted his first car, gifted by his father in 1997, into his first sculpture Fiesta Transformer.^[5] The converted Ford Fiesta sculpture has become a symbol of the working class. Patel's attraction to fantasticism along with movies such as Transformers influenced his sculpture, hence the title Fiesta Transformer.^[6]

Patel's exploration of identity and culture is a key feature and common theme throughout his work.^[7] Sacred Bodies(2004/5)^[8] is a collection of self-portraits in which Patel tries to better understand his Indian cultural heritage. To create each piece, he covered his upper body in patterns using henna (a pigment used for mehndi) and a red pigment, Kanku,^[9] used for markings of cultural importance in Hindu communities.^[10]

Patel also uses his art to explore the concepts behind masculinity. Oh Man (2018) was a collaborative project between Contact Youth Company and Hetain Patel which explored both the positive qualities of masculinity and the problems caused by toxic masculinity, as well as trying to understand how perceptions of masculinity can affect people of all genders.^[11]

In 2013 he made his debut at the TED Global conference in Edinburgh. Patel spoke about assumptions and expectations made on how people look like, sound, their heritage, gender or race, and class. Hetain empasizes the fact that even if we fail while imitating our role models, we still might learn and discover ourselves by imitating them.^[12]

In 2014, a UK-based dance company Candoco known for their disabled and non-disabled performers, assigned Hetain Patel to create a choreographical art piece. In his first ever commissioned dance choreography Patel brings to the surface social concerns such as representation exploration and identity perception of Candoco's dancers.^[13] Lets Talk About Dis challenges viewers in its playful tone to think beyond boundaries and offers them the courage to be much more honest and transparent about their personalities and communication. However, during 30 minutes, there is not much typically expected dance showing involved. Patel and the dancers focus on delivering a message on diversity, inclusion, and improper public correctness. Hetain smartly navigates the audience with minimal spoken word parts of the performance, through the fluid usage of three languages: English, French, and BSL.^[14]

Selected exhibitions

Education

• Diploma Foundation Studies in Art and Design, The University of Salford, UK, 2000
• BA Hons Fine Art, The Nottingham Trent University, UK, 2003
• Visiting Lecturer, The Nottingham Trent University, UK, ongoing

Selected awards

• Decibel Award awarded by Arts Council England, 2004^[24]
• Nottingham Creative Business of the Year, 2008^[25]
• Satyajit Ray Short Film Award, 2009
• Jerwood Choreographic Research Project, 2017
• Film London Jarman Award, 2019^[26]
• Best International Film awarded by Kino Der Kunst in Munich, Germany, 2020^[27]

References