Artist of the Year: Sohil Patel Picture Perfect
Sohil Patel first started taking photographs just three years ago on a summer trip to South Africa between ninth and tenth grade. Since that trip, Patel has discovered a passion and endless talent for the field. “My dad gave me an old film camera and I just took photos,” Patel said. “It didn't really feel like I was going to pursue photography in any way shape or form when I came back from the trip. I'm actually pretty surprised that I love art so much now. Back then it was just something I casually enjoyed doing. Now, it has become something I love and have to do.”
For Patel, art has proved to be a real inspiration and has taught him that an ordinary scene is never ordinary. “Art has inspired me to be a better thinker. It taught me to look at things from a different perspective. It taught that if you stare at something long enough it will always look like something else.” Yet it has also given him confidence because there are so many different ways to view any one thing. “[But] most importantly,” Patel said, “It taught me that even when you think you've failed and you've lost confidence in your work, someone out there will love it and appreciate and recognize you for it.”
While photography is Patel’s main interest, he has also become invested in other mediums of art. “Photography was my focus and still is, because I have all the techniques, but I’m interested in exploring other forms of art too. My senior project is an exploration of all the different mediums of art. I’m working on painting right now, but did drawing, sculpture- attractive art.”
Although Patel has only pursued photography a short time, he has become enthralled by its ability to completely narrate a scene, yet leave so much unspoken. “I like photography because, I don’t know how to explain, it’s very difficult, but it’s very finite and captures everything that’s going on. It shows what you’re thinking, which doesn't happen often in other mediums. You can’t understand what the person is seeing or thinking or viewing in that moment, but if you take a photograph a certain way, you can show exactly how you are internalizing the moment.”
As well as being fun and entertaining, photography- and art in general- definitely has its challenges. “The most challenging part is the energy and time it takes to learn the new mediums,” Patel explained. “People think art is learning all the techniques, but that’s just technique. Its the same as writing; it’s not literature just because you can write flawlessly and have really good grammar. Literature is made when you can decompose the writing and grammar itself. Same with art. You can have really beautiful technique, but it’s not art necessarily.”
Patel is also sometimes frustrated with the inhibitions inherent in high school art. “Everyone is driven to pursue technique, and whoever has the best technique is the best artist, but there isn’t much consideration given to the thought process and what they’re actually doing with it. It’s kind of wanting to pursue those techniques but at the same time wanting to deconstruct them. That’s the most difficult part.”
Ever since coming to Exeter, Patel has been inspired by his mentor and friend Dr. Jon Sakata. “I got into art last year so its been rather rapid development,” Patel said. “Dr. Sakata is my composition teacher, and at this point we don’t even play piano anymore, we just have a conversation about art.”
Sakata has been able to teach Patel the intricacies of art, which has furthered his love for the subject. “I also receive a lot of outside the classroom help. Dr. Sakata has been very inspirational for me; he has acted as my mentor for the last two or three years. Every time I go to him, every time we have a conversation, something else is inspired. He sparks something and makes me want to think my art more. He has been the most influential factor in terms of my art.”
Sakata has taught Patel piano composition, but beyond that has also helped him explore the richer parts of art and has fostered his love for the subject. Sakata described how Patel has explored diverse and richly personal projects in multimedia, culminating in engaging, problematizing and framing the “present” to creatively live with “presence.”
“In a sense, as a photographer, he came to me already in a mode of richly appreciating and occupying the present; but I have wanted to challenge him to critically engage this present as both an even larger as well as microscopic milieu in which to work out and mine problems of seeing, feeling, hearing, sensing in so many ways and levels,” Sakata said.
Sakata elaborated by describing Patel’s innate ability to energize a scene in unique ways. “I love the way he turned his ‘meds’ into not just an object to be depicted or captured; but as a means, a generator to unleash and harness entirely new energies, forces, critical awarenesses, as well as to try to penetrate the emotional gradients these ‘ingested agents’ cause him, give him, toward his own sense of agency to think the other, feel the other, express the other (and in turn to think, feel, be mindful of himself in new, unknown ways).”
As well as his artistic abilities, Patel is also described as a sincerely kind individual who cares deeply for the well-being of others. “Sohil is one of the friendliest guys I've ever met,” Patel’s current roommate, senior Joey Hebl, said. “He is genuinely concerned with how you're doing, which has helped him be a great student listener and proctor at Exeter. Sohil and I have been together for four years but have become especially close this spring.”
In his time at Exeter, Patel has found a new side of himself and grown in confidence inside the art studio as well as outside it. “Sohil was a shy, nervous prep but as he's survived many of Exeter's challenges he's really come out of his shell and has learned that sweating the little stuff here will make things nearly impossible,” Hebl said. “Sohil is an especially courageous Exonian. This past year Sohil has completely changed his mind on what he wants to do with the next stage of life. He astounding growth as an artist has been fun to watch and, although it can be a tough field to study and find success in, I'm certain, given Sohil's abilities and passion, that he will find happiness it what he does, and find success in whatever he does. He's willing to take a chance, and that deserves a lot of praise.”
A member of Patel’s fall 444 art class, Katie McCarthy, described Patel as “determined, modest, and sweet.” She said, “Like me, Sohil is more fluent in images than words or numbers. We have never collaborated on any work together, but we do often go to each other for advice. He'll ask me painting or other studio art questions and I'll get his help with various photography things.”
McCarthy also praised Patel’s ability to hone in and focus on a project or abstract idea. “Sohil is very determined to follow through with a task or idea and has a wonderful work ethic. And though he's very gifted and has a lot of experience in the photography field, he is still extremely modest. He is probably the sweetest boy I know at Exeter. He not only has an impressive overall collection of work, but also brilliant smaller series of various concentrations. I firmly believe Sohil will go far.”