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Hetain Patel
Patel in 2017
Born	1980 (age 45–46)
Website	http://www.hetainpatel.com/

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 the United Kingdom.

Contents

• Early life and education
• Work
• Selected exhibitions
• Performance
• Films and video
• Sculpture
• Photography
• Other exhibitions
• Selected awards
• References

Early life and education

Patel was born and raised in a working class British Gujarati Asian household in Bolton, England. He was subjected to racial abuse, stating, "just walking from the house to the car was difficult." ^[1] As a child, Patel developed an interest in superhero movies, playing as Spider-Man in his grandmother's house. ^{[1] [2]}

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] As Patel became older, his father, who worked at a day job converting cars, inspired him to create his first sculpture. Patel converted his first car, which was gifted by his father in 1997, into his first sculpture, Fiesta Transformer. ^[5] Patel's interest in movies such as Transformers led to its title, the Fiesta Transformer. ^[6]

He received a Diploma Foundation Studies in Art and Design from the University of Salford in 2000 and a BA Hons Fine Art in 2003 from Nottingham Trent University.

Work

Sacred Bodies (2004/5) ^[7] is a collection of self-portraits. To create each piece, he covered his upper body in patterns using henna (a pigment used for mehndi) and a red pigment, Kanku, ^[8] used for markings of cultural importance in Hindu communities. ^[9]

In 2013, he made his debut at the TED Global conference in Edinburgh. ^[10] In 2014, a UK-based dance company, Candoco, assigned Hetain Patel to create a choreographic art piece. Hetain uses minimal spoken word as parts of the performance through the usage of three languages: English, French, and British Sign Language. ^[11]

Oh Man (2018) was a collaborative project between Contact Youth Company and Hetain Patel that is about the positive qualities of masculinity and the problems caused by toxic masculinity. ^[12]

Selected exhibitions

Selected awards

• Decibel Award awarded by Arts Council England, 2004 ^[22]
• Nottingham Creative Business of the Year, 2008 ^[23]
• Satyajit Ray Short Film Award, 2009
• Jerwood Choreographic Research Project, 2017
• Film London Jarman Award, 2019 ^[24]
• Best International Film awarded by Kino Der Kunst in Munich, Germany, 2020 ^[25]

References