Education:

“Painting is a constant dialogue arising between myself and reality and the supernatural” - says Ami Shah-Patel. Ami was born in Mumbai (India) where she spent her entire childhood and where she currently lives. She attended the renowned Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai where she earned her Masters in Fine Art in Portraits achieving a Distinction of having 1st rank in her class. Earlier she had earned her Bachelors in Fine Arts from the same institution. Her Masters thesis was titled “Language of Human Forms” which shows the journey of human form from where it started and how its meaning changed according to the environment. She says that her desire to pursue art was inspired by a scene in a movie. This depicted an artist, who using his imagination and skills along with a description provided by the police, made a portrait of a criminal. This portrait resembled the criminal very accurately. This fascinated Ami and got her attracted to learn this portrait art. She has quite a few awards to her credit namely the Maharashtra State Art Award, a Government of India scholarship for 2 years, the Bombay Art Society Merit Certificate, the Art Society of India Award, the Raza merit scholarship etc.

For Ami, painting is a painted preparation for the soul, an expression of the Subconscious. In her early works, there was a prominent presence of a female Figure. As her works have matured, the figure has begun to diminish – becoming the background, and making the abstract background the foreground. She feels Very close to nature and adores all natural objects and living beings, which takes her to a different world. The natural images and ambiance stays with her forever. Painting is a profound expression of those feelings and experiences. Ami displayed those emotional and spiritual works at her First solo exhibition in Jehangir Art Gallery titled ‘Colours of Karmic Illusion’ in 1999 and then also in 2003 titled “Colours of Khushi”, where she was first to introduced metal via Screen printing. She had used the photos of her daughter worked with photoshop and screenprints. This exhibition completely reflected happiness of Motherhood. After which she took a two year break to rediscover herself. She has also participated at group shows in the Jehangir Art Gallery (Mumbai), Leela Kempinski (Mumbai), Art Today (Delhi), Artists Centre (Mumbai), Y.B. Chavan (Mumbai), Lalit Kala Akademy (Delhi) and the National Gallery of Modern Art (Mumbai), 2007“Colours” Group Show, 2008- Participation in Artists centre Show, Group show in Dubai, Succhitra art gallery, Participation in Museum art Gallery, Concern India show, Hirji jehangir gallery, 2009 – Participation in colours.

After her solo show named Colours of khushi she experimented in lot of mediums, while working with entirely different mediums – ranging from glass and ceramics to metal and wood. Preferring the latter combination; the outcome has been the current exhibition in March 2009 in Jehangir art gallery .Along with paintings, Patel also began to delve into other forms of art, such as sculpture.

Her paintings are a reflection of her inner state- happiness, love, which she tries to depict through various mediums. She has constant insatiable hunger to paint the known things taking her towards the unknown. Her desire is to create a painting that would extend and enhance and widen the human consciousness i.e. “to recreate in paint – a dream, a vision”.