Mantu Chitrakar wins an award

So so pleased to announce that Mantu Chitrakar, one of the artists I have promoted for the last 15 years has just won the Award of Excellence for 2014 from the World Crafts Council Asia Pacific Region. Mantu is a wonderful scroll painter from West Bengal and a great singer too, often composing songs for the scrolls he makes on contemporary topics such as female foeticide and terrorism. Thanks to the work we do to promote traditional artists, his works are now part of the permanent collection in prominent museums such as National Museums, Liverpool, the American Visionary Art Museum and the US Library of Congress. 

Mantu worked in my home on the last few panels of a magnificent patachitra he submitted to the World Crafts Council. This scroll is based  on the Santhal story of origin and I helped him by writing about it. I got a chance to click some pictures while he was working ...so take a look at an award winning scroll. 

Outsider /Visionary Art

Teju Behn, Fashion

Soni Jogi, Washing


Somi Jogi , Krishna

Outsider or visionary art the way I see it is art that is self-taught and in the case of India, outside of any established tradition. Visionary Art in some context is seen as art made by people with psychological issues who have found expression for their inner landscape in the art-work they do. In India, the Jogi family from Ahmedabad does what I call "Outsider Art", their lack of education no bar to the felicity with which they yield pen and colour. The father Ganesh Jogi, the mother Teju Behn, the sons Govind and Prakash, the daughters Somi and Sangita and of late, the daughter-in-laws, Soni , Govind's wife and Kanta, Prakash's wife -- all draw and paint, in styles that are quite different. My story on them made it to the cover story of the Folk Art Messenger magazine in USA which is published by the Folk Art Society of America http://http//www.folkart.org/mag/ganesh-jogi-teju-ben

Enjoy their art !!

Cross-Cultural Exchanges

One of my goals is to take traditional artists from India to venues across the world where they can interact with artists from other cultures and showcase their own traditions. Such exchanges allow for creativity to unfold in new, sometimes unexpected ways and lead to dialogue, sometimes without language.

Here are some pictures from Crosshatched, a cross-cultural exchange programme supported by the Australia-India Council wherein three artists from India ( Pushpa Kumari, a Madhubani artist, Pradyumna Kumar, a paper-machie sculptor from Madhubani and Mantu Chitrakar, a pattachitra artist from West Bengal) travelled to Melbourne and worked with Australian artists Ann Ferguson, and Vipoo Srivilasa. They also conducted workshops with children of all ages at different venues.

Mantu Chitrakar singing out a scroll

Vipoo and Pushpa with one of their collaborative work

Story-telling - Minhazz with Pradyumna's award winning story How the Firefly got its Light

Mantu Chitrakar with his daughter Sonia's work on the walls at The Early Learning Centre

Ann and Pradyumna working on their Fusion Tree
For more details of the project see http://www.crosshatched.multiply.com/