About Prithpal S. Ladi

Born in 1956, Shillong, Prithpal Singh Sehdave Ladi studied sculpture with distinction at MS University, Baroda, 1981. He was awarded the national LKA award, 1981, Gujarat LKA awards, 1978, 1988 and the inaugural Bendre Husain Award, 1989. He received several scholarships; from government ones to the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1981-82. He taught sculpture at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad and NIFT, New Delhi. Among his shows are: solo at Jehangir Art Gallery, sponsored by RPG, Mumbai, 1996, the 8th Asian Biennale, Dhaka, Contemporary Indian Art, Peru, 1998, Edge of the Century, New Delhi, 1999, solo at the Gallery Goethe, sponsored by the Kulturefferat, Munich, 2000, See through, an exhibition in glass, British Council, New Delhi, 2001, Art from India, Gallery Muller and Plate, Munich, 2002, Art from South East Asia, Munich, 2003, his works represented the country at the Asian Art Show, Fukuoka, Japan and Seoul, South Korea, Sacred Space, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2004, solo show at gallery Threshold, New Delhi, 2008, his miniature works were shown in New York  by the Saffron Art at their special jewellery section, thence at, Religare gallery, New Delhi and some participative group shows in Mumbai.  Lately he has been working from Kolkata, at frequent intervals, at invited workshops and upon his own, courtesy of Akar Prakar and the Lalit Kala Akademi.

Ladi’s works exhibit his penchant for the eccentric and strange. A more direct realism is seen in works like ‘Wishing Well’ and the untitled sculpture of a man reading in his bathtub. Ladi infuses his sculptures with a queer humor that enables the viewer to access them at different levels moving effortlessly from the familiar to the fantastic, or from the apparent to the suggested.