Baa’s House 1

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Kung fu movies and superhero comics have had a big impact on artist Hetain Patel. For him these stories of escape and transformation provided refuge, while growing up in Bolton and being the ‘only brown family in town’.

In this photograph Patel poses with his grandmother wearing a very convincing homemade Spider-Man costume. The image is taken in his grandmother’s living room, the home in which Patel and his relatives have lived at various stages since 1967. In the background we see family photographs spanning 40 years and his grandmother is celebrated as a matriarch, being the instigator of the family migration from India. While the work initially appears humorous it speaks to Patel’s desire to transcend expectations of identity. Placing the mainstream figure of Spider-Man within the marginalised world of his British Indian identity, he asserts his connection to multiple identities. He says: ‘I’m interested in how we read each other as human beings, whether it’s our gender, ethnicity, or what we’re wearing. I’m interested in transforming, visually and physically, those things that we read as identity’.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), digital print

Artist

Hetain Patel (1980 - )

Title

Baa’s House 1

Date

2015

Medium

digital print on archival paper

Dimensions

height: 143.8 cm; width: 119.4 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the artist, March 2022

Provenance

The artist; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 30 March 2022

GAC number

19061