Gieve Patel's choice of profession was dictated by his past.
Gieve Patel is a poet, physician, playwright and painter all rolled into one, and a retrospective of his works at Chemould Gallery, Mumbai, from the 1970s to 2007 is evidence of how he’s managed to skilfully juggle all these varied interests. Perhaps what helps is that he believes each one is separate and independent of the other. He’s never tried to be multi-disciplinary and sees each discipline as wholly integrated in itself. However the liking he developed for art and sculpture was because the love for these was instilled into him at an early age.
The emphasis on keen observation and anatomy can be attributed to his training as a physician. Like his art, Patel’s poems often foreground the body and its stark functions, which becomes a living metaphor. Not only that, the speaker’s background as a doctor found its way into his work in the form of a series of paintings on violent deaths: however, there is always some redeeming value to be found in the depiction.
Gieve Patel is primarily a painter by profession. He has also experimented with sculptures. He is credited with designing the logo for India Foundation for the Arts.

Gieve Patel, Daphne, 2006, oil on canvas, 7.5 x 15 x 2.3”

Logo of India Foundation for the Arts
Gieve Patel has explored the theme of wells extensively in his works.

Gieve Patel , Looking into a Well: Bougainvilleae, 2010 ,oil on canvas,96 x 96 inches/ 243.84 x 243.84 cms.

Gieve Patel, Cloud 10, 2007, ink on paper, 6 x 11"
Patel engages with quotidian aspirations and politically engaged awareness of reality
An avant-garde artist based in Bombay, Patel is primarily a figurative painter whose central character is the subaltern figure -the victim of power structures, the individual who is located at the lowest strata of society’s rigid hierarchies.
Urban workers, beggars, and slum-dwellers often feature in Patel’s works. In "Gallery of Man" series, the artist poignantly depicts marginal figures like a eunuch, a drowned woman, and a leper thus foregrounding realities of inequality, discrimination and gender. Even mythological characters like Daphne and Eklavya are victims of unjust social norms. In works like Crushed Head (1984) and Battered Man in Landscape (1993), victimized heads and torsos narrate a tale of urban violence and alienation.

Gieve Patel, Near the busstop, 1991, oil on canvas, 58 x 71”

Gieve Patel, Man in the rain with bread and bananas, watercolour on canvas
Grotesque is an important motif in Patel's works.

Gieve Patel, Crows with debris, 1999, oil on canvas, 32 x 28”

Gieve Patel, Four Meditations on Old Age, 2013, oil on canvas board, 24 x 18”
Patel defies perspective and depth.
Patel deliberately undermines the classical European obsession with perspective and depth. He chooses a different trajectory altogether - he starts exploring textural surfaces and single solid colours, such as In Shipbuilding in Mumbai (2005) or Stroll (1997). In the afore-mentioned works, Patel uses texture and pattern to define objects. The single viewpoint which is the street level view is privileged. Moving from single basic colours to adventurous vivid hues, the artist successfully manages to make a transition from dark shades to more bright and luminous colours.

Gieve Patel, Bicyclist in a Field, 1979, oil on canvas,66 x 40”