Warli painting

Context: Warli Whisperers, an exhibition by the Inherited Arts Forum, traces the artistic journey of the celebrated Mashe family from Maharashtra

About:

• Origin: Warli art, until the 1970s, focused on representing the joy and happiness of the Warli Tribes' lives. Traditionally, women practiced this art form.
• Method: Cow dung layers serve as the canvas, painted in mud brown for the background. Bamboo-stick paint brushes are used to create art lines. Jivya Soma Mashe brought new meaning to the art by capturing the cyclical movement of life on the canvas. The paintings use geometric shapes - circle, triangle, and square - symbolizing elements in nature. The circle represents the sun and the moon, the triangle symbolizes mountains and conical trees, and the square signifies a human invention like a sacred enclosure or a piece of land. The central motif in ritual paintings is a square known as "chauk" or "chaukat."
• Theme: Warli paintings depict scenes of hunting, fishing, farming, festivals, and folk dances. People and animals are represented by two inverse triangles, symbolizing the balance of the universe.
• Social Importance: Mashe's Warli art records important events, transmitting local stories pictorially. It shifted from religious imagery to narratives of tribal lives, values, and self-expression. Warli art helps tribals reflect on social injustices caused by power imbalances.

About Warli Tribe:

• Origin: The Warli Tribe is an indigenous community primarily located in the mountainous and coastal regions of western India, spanning across Maharashtra and Gujarat.
•  Culture: The Warli Tribe follows animism and engages in the worship of nature spirits and ancestors. They use painting as a means to portray their traditional way of life, customs, and traditions.