Ahmedabad based Ravi Joshi hails from the coastal town of Porbandar, Gujarat. He pursued painting while exposed to images in his family-run photography studio, where sitters often came to get their portraits made. The black-and-white photographs were often rendered colourful by applying transparent coloured ink. Firm critique on his early drawings came from his grandfather, who had a penchant for touching up black-and-white negatives with a finely sharpened graphite tip. A blurring of distinction between a face, portraiture, a body, and the landscape has remained his preoccupation. The coastal Kathiyawar region and its undulating terrain punctuate his recent paintings as the artist recalls the mangroves, swamps and hills of the region, painted in a process analogous to developing a photograph from memory. Ravi's work was introduced in 2009 by Anupa Mehta under THE LOFT at Lower Parel. His first solo comprised twelve paintings of faces titled Man in a Movie Hall, Video Tape Memories, Death of a Bee, and other gestural constructs as faces. Since then, he has held four solo shows at Anupa Mehta Contemporary Art, Mumbai; Gallery OED, Cochin, Kerala; and ‘Amdavad ni Gufa’, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The recent exploration of the landscape persistently aspires to attain a figure-like quality. The technique involves a nuanced language, from the acquisition of materials to the alchemical processes that involve locally produced indigo vats and lime baths.