Praveen Utge, a contemporary visual artist from Jalgaon, Maharashtra, is celebrated for his colorful figurative paintings, especially of Indian women in traditional Rajasthani attire. A graduate in Drawing, Painting, and Art Education, Utge has been active in the Indian art scene since 2003. His works also extend to nature and mythological themes, often representing Hindu goddesses through expressive forms and vibrant palettes.

What makes his art distinctive is the serene, lyrical quality of his female figures, dreamlike, spiritual, and deeply aesthetic. He skillfully blends traditional Indian artistic influences with modern techniques, creating paintings that feel timeless yet contemporary. His use of cool backdrops, symbolic colors, and expressive eyes lends his canvases a strong emotional presence.

Utge’s work has drawn appreciation from art lovers in India and abroad for its ability to merge sensuality with spiritual purity, and everyday life with poetic imagination. By highlighting the eternal beauty of women and their inner worlds, his paintings transcend cultural and social boundaries, offering viewers an escape into harmony and innocence.

Painted Lyrics

Dreamy-eyed lasses populate the canvases of Pravin Utge. These girls with syrupy looks are engaged in different daily activities; some of them are religious, some of them are playful, and yet another lot are in conversation with nature. The serene atmosphere created by the artist takes the viewer to a different realm of aesthetical pleasure. There is no agitation and conflict in the lives of these young protagonists. They are not led by any Â‘ismsÂ’ or ideologies. In their dreamy lives, they are perfect and sedate, and they tend to remain eternal like the imageries of love in a ballad.

Formally speaking, the cool colors that Pravin employs to build up the backdrop of the paintings are apt to represent the rituals (seasons) of India. With the shifting tones of yellows, reds, whites and blues, the artist captures the essence of the Indian seasons. It would be the folly of a viewer if he/she is not reminded of the Hindustani classical ragas and the plays written by the legendary poet, Kalidasa. Like in the great literary works and musical narratives, the changes of the seasons connote the changes in the lives of a woman.

Though the life of a woman in our times is conflict-ridden, the artist does not want to critically approach the politico-cultural aspects of it. Instead, he invests his energies in highlighting the eternal beauty of a woman and her soul. Their bodies, almost transparent and translucent in their treatment, do not just represent their erotic potential but symbolically bring spiritual purity. An interested viewer could see that Pravin does not attempt to bring the quotidian aspects of an urban woman's life; instead, he focuses on the desired lyricism of rural life.

This desired lyricism of rural life is a projection of the artistic thinking on the harsh realities of the present-day life of people, whether it is in urban spaces or in rural areas. But by submerging them with the lyrical beauty of these paintings, the artist intends to show the world that this could be a possibility; a return to the primal innocence where the girls live a carefree life by looking into the mirrors and playing in the lotus ponds. This possibility is a metaphorical one as the artist understands that such possibilities are realized only in the realm of art.

In Pravin Utge's works, modern painting techniques meet the traditional tempera and pigment-oriented painting methods. These paintings derive their creative and imaginative energies from traditional murals, folk and tribal art & Indian miniatures. Though there is a deliberate reduction of narrative strategies in these works, the artist intends these frozen moments of depiction to be a part of the larger narrative, which, as I aforementioned, could be both lyrical and musical.

Keen eyes could see how Pravin Utge divides the pictorial plane into different levels in order to facilitate the blooming of the painterly thematic. Even in their insular zones, Pravin very skillfully incorporates the religious, domestic, public and secular matters (as in worshiping, playing, processions, and so on) pertaining to the lives of women. Also, by gathering them as group images, Pravin suggests that even in their remote lives, women are always united by their womanhood itself.

Johny M L

November 2010

New Delhi

Personal details:

Born 1978, Jalgaon, Maharashtra

Qualifications:

1997-1999 - Art Teacher Diploma, Chitrakala Mahavidyalay, Latur
1999-2002 - G.D Art (Drawing and Painting)
2002-2003 - Dip-A-Ed (Diploma in Art Edu), B. K. Mahavidyalaya, Pune

Pravin Utge

Visual Artist | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Available Artworks by Pravin Utge