Shanti Panchal: A Personal Language of Painting 2007-2018

Battersea depicts two gentle figures within a family setting, one an elderly gentleman visiting from India. Seated in a Chelsea apartment, the iconic architecture of Battersea Power station is glimpsed through the window, its chimney forming a dramatic white vertical pushing upwards through the composition. Panchal recalls of the moment, that the gentleman always felt the cold in London, so the pale shape in front of him in fact represents - rather prosaically - the back of a heater. Now in 2020, Battersea Power Station is repurposed as luxury homes, restaurants, shops and a hotel on the south side of the Thames. Its new role reminds Panchal of his own visit (with a selected group of artists) to the Tate turbine hall before its transformation was completed from power station to Tate Modern, now one of the most iconic and popular art galleries in the world.