Pramod Gaikwad was born in 1975 in Latur, a semi-arid region in Maharashtra, a west central state of India. Promod completed his BFA from the Government Art College in Aurangabad. In this semi-rural area he recalls art education being imparted in a bureaucratic manner. This created a kind of insatiable urge in him to learn art on his own. After completing his education he came to Bharat Bhavan, in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Bharat Bhavan is an art center located in central India, famous for its foundational spirit of providing space to both traditional and modern art. From 1997 onwards, Promod has continuously lived in Bhopal doing his artwork. During this 17 year journey in art, Promod Gaikwad has displayed his work in both national and international galleries and museums. His talent has been acknowledged by many leading artists like Syed Haider Raza, the famed Indian painter, who discusses Promod’s work in his autobiography.
Promod Gaikwad’s work shows that an artist learns first from himself; he begins everything from inside and moves on to encompass the infinite reality outside. During his college days he started with representational art but he felt anxiety with forms, which he always believed obfuscate reality. This led to his steady shift towards non-representational abstract art. His abstract work manifests the interplay of color, in which he helps the emergence of sublime darkness from the mute light of the blank canvas. This darkness is not black or nothingness rather it represents the opacity of a first impression upon our eyes; unfathomable to our senses, unrecognized in language. When you look at the titles of his various work series such as “Do Not Relate with Anything, but Relate with You”, “Zero Side Effect”, “Meditate with me” and “Migration Instinct” you will understand that he wants to paint the tenderness of being human in this overtly duplicitous world. Pramod feels true art always relaxes you; it brings your inner emotions out. By looking at his work you can experience the amazing lightness of self-realization of both our inner and outer worlds; freeing us from the weight of tension, between what is known to our senses and what is unknown, whose strangeness generates an anxiety of meaninglessness.
