Canary in a Coalmine (detalhe), 2012, Clark House, Bombay, Índia

Prabhakar Pachpute was born and raised in Chandrapur (Maharashtra), India, a place known as ‘The City of Black Gold’, where his family has worked for three generations in one of the oldest mines in the country. Currently, he lives and works in Mumbai. He has done his Bachelors in Fine Arts from I.K.S.University, Khairagarh (Chhattisgarh) in 2009 and Masters from M. S. University Baroda (Gujrat) in 2011. He has exhibited extensively in India and in 2013 he participated in Black and White exhibition, in Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, curated by Galit Eilat.

Dust Bowl in Our hands, 2013

Prabhakar Pachpute’s works deal with the lives and issues of coal miners and labour struggles in general, and it attempts to convey the sublime trauma and psychological impact of working deep inside the bowels of the earth. Even when they are off duty there is at the back of their minds a gnawing anxiety of their lives caving in as the living quarters are located above the same mines. The other concern in his work is that of the farming communities in and around the area-as more and more farm lands are acquired for mining and industrialization, the farmers are left with no options for livelihood. The artist has been exploring newer methods of drawing, expanding the boundaries by the use of lamps and casting shadows on them.