Rajoo Parekh’s artistic journey is rooted in Bhavnagar, a coastal city whose rhythms, colours and silences continue to shape his creative life. Born with a natural sensitivity toward both the outer world and the inner one, Rajoo grew into an artist who sees painting and poetry not as two separate practices, but as two languages of the same inner search. His work carries the fragrance of Gujarat—its light, its temples, its ordinary beauty—yet it speaks in a universal, human register accessible to anyone willing to pause and look more deeply.
Rajoo’s formal introduction to art began at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, where he completed one year of Fine Arts in 1970. MSU Baroda, known for its history of nurturing some of India’s most distinctive artistic voices, offered him exposure to foundational disciplines, visual sensitivity, and the early courage to trust his instincts. His later academic path, a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry (1972), might seem unrelated, but it quietly strengthened his visual practice. Chemistry gave him a scientific curiosity—an appreciation for subtle transformations, structures, and the nuanced behaviour of materials. This dual training, artistic and scientific, remains visible in his work: his compositions are both emotional and deliberate, intuitive yet thoughtfully composed.
As a painter, Rajoo Parekh is drawn to the inner landscape as much as the outer. His canvases often carry the quiet glow of introspection—soft colour fields that border on abstraction, gentle figurative forms, and images that appear to emerge from memory rather than observation alone. He favours warmth over spectacle, intimacy over noise. The spiritual undertone in his work is not overt or doctrinal; rather, it resides in silence, in stillness, and in the honest observation of everyday existence. His paintings feel lived—they are rooted in experience, sensitivity and the small, poetic gestures of life.
Many of Rajoo’s works draw inspiration from the environments close to him: the calm of Bhavnagar, the devotional atmosphere of Palitana, the coastal moods of Saurashtra. His palette frequently reflects these geographies—earthy browns, soft ochres, temple whites, the blue-grey of dawn, and the muted red of afternoon heat. He paints not landscapes alone, but the emotions landscapes evoke: belonging, longing, solitude, memory, and sacred quiet.
Rajoo’s poetry extends the same sensibility but through a different instrument. His verses are spare, reflective, and free of unnecessary ornamentation. They dwell on the essential: a moment of light on a wall, the sound of footsteps in the evening, the breath of a dusty lane, the spiritual pause before saying a simple truth. His poems resemble brushstrokes—precise, economical, and full of feeling. They reveal a writer who listens deeply to the world around him and even more deeply to the world within.
Together, his paintings and poems form a unified artistic identity. One medium explores colour, form and space; the other explores rhythm, breath and meaning. But both seek the same end: a kind of quiet clarity. Rajoo is an artist who believes in the power of small moments. He trusts the meditative value of looking slowly, thinking gently, and honouring the inner voice that guides him.
In a world increasingly defined by speed, volume and spectacle, Rajoo Parekh’s work offers a counterpoint—an invitation to pause. To breathe. To rediscover the grace hidden in routine, the tenderness in imperfection, and the luminosity in silence. His art does not demand attention; it welcomes it. It does not shout; it listens. And in that listening, viewers often find something personal reflected back at them.
Rajoo continues to paint, write and live in Gujarat, where the balance of solitude and cultural richness fuels his creativity. He remains committed to the lifelong pursuit of beauty—beauty not as decoration but as truth. For him, art is not a product but a practice, not an achievement but a way of being. His journey is ongoing, evolving quietly yet steadily, shaped by introspection, devotion, and the deep desire to translate experience into something meaningful.
Through both brush and word, Rajoo Parekh gives us a gift: a reminder that the simplest moments often hold the greatest depth, and that art—like life—is at its best when it is honest, attentive and full of heart.