Gond Painting @ Silent Theatre Laboratory's Summer Cart (Camp)2012

 The Gond painting transports you to the seamless world of the imaginative and the surprising. Like most other tribal communities, the Gonds (hill people) are artistically gifted and possess astounding creative vision. Traditionally, their paintings on mud wall houses relied on shared symbols within a local community context. More recently they have taken to painting on canvas or paper using new colours and new themes.

 

One of the largest tribal communities in South Asia and perhaps the world, the Gonds, are mainly found in Madhya Pradesh and its surrounding States.

 Gond paintings in their singular, “two-dimensional” style cover numerous themes – folk stories, religion, nature etc. They may be bursting with flamboyant hues or more controlled, in the simple sophistication of black and white. Though similar in style, they are individual in expression and interpretation.

 It is interesting to observe that Gond paintings bear a remarkable likeness to Australian aboriginal art as both forms use dots or lines as fillers.

The Gond tribe, one of the famous tribes belonging to the Mandala region of Madhya Pradesh, has a typical style of painting, known as Gond paintings. Painted freehand, these two dimensional paintings reflect their perception of life. The third dimension, the depth is always lacking in these paintings reflecting the simplicity of the artist. Sometimes these paintings also tell how colorful their imagination can be. They put colors to the blandest creations of the nature at times. For example you can see the lizard here in our collection with colorful stripes and dots. They can be treated as the expression of their desire to color the nature as well, if we think philosophically.  

Some Clicks of Summer Cart (Camp) @ Salarpuria Sanctity, Surjapura Bangalore

Madhubani @ Summer Cart of Silent Theatre Laboratory, Bangalore

Madhubani painting or Mithila painting is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state, India and the adjoining parts of Terai in Nepal. Painting is done with fingers, twigs, brushes, nib-pens, and matchsticks, using natural dyes and pigments, and is characterized by eye-catching geometrical patterns. There are paintings for each occasion and festival such as birth, marriage, holi, surya shasti, kali puja, Upanayanam (sacred thread ceremony), and durga puja.

  The origins of Madhubani painting or Mithala Painting are shrouded in antiquity and mythology.

Madhubani painting has been done traditionally by the women of villages around the present town of Madhubani (the literal meaning of which is forests of honey) and other areas of Mithila. The painting was traditionally done on freshly plastered mud walls and floors of huts, but now they are also done on cloth, hand-made paper and canvas.

Madhubani paintings are made from the paste of powdered rice. Madhubani painting has remained confined to a compact geographical area and the skills have been passed on through centuries, the content and the style have largely remained the same.

Madhubani paintings also use two dimensional imagery, and the colors used are derived from plants. Ochre and lampblack are also used for reddish brown and black respectively.

Madhubani paintings mostly depict nature and Hindu religious motifs, and the themes generally revolve around Hindu deities like Krishna, Ram, Shiva, Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Natural objects like the sun, the moon, and religious plants like tulsi are also widely painted, along with scenes from the royal court and social events like weddings. Generally no space is left empty; the gaps are filled by paintings of flowers, animals, birds, and even geometric designs. Objects depicted in the walls of kohabar ghar (where newly wed couple see each other in the first night) are symbols of sexual pleasure and procreation.

Traditionally, painting was one of the skills that was passed down from generation to generation in the families of the Mithila Region, mainly by women.

Summer Cart @ May Flower

Mime

A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. 

 

Silent Theatre Laboratory's Summer Cart (Camp) @ Salarpuria Sanctity,Bangalore

Kalamkari or Qalamkari is a type of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile, produced in parts of India. The word is derived from the Persian words kalam (pen) and kari (craftmanship), meaning drawing with a pen.

@May Flower, Sarjapur

@Salarpuria Sanctity

Salarpuria!!!