Warli (Maharashtra)
by Ramesh Hengadi
Rice pigments on cloth prepared with cow-dung
A decorative painting that uses continuous narration to depict village life. At its centre, the village of the Warli tribesmen is shown bustling with activity. Some villagers are tend to plants, while others help clean the streets, prepare food and build houses. The previously subsistence farmers are shown embracing new technology and machinery and our depicted in aeroplanes and in cars. Yet, they still recognise the importance of nature and they live within their fields. Painted by Hengadi during Covid-19, the painting depicts a stylistic flock of birds surrounds the village protecting them from the infectious disease.
The Warli style is defined by the use of two inverted and balanced triangles are used to represent the human body. Only two colours are used, brown (used in their clay huts) for the background and white (in the past obtained with rice powder) for the painted forms. This minimal use of colour, enhances the meticulous pictography that transcribes their everyday life activities. Every painting is rhythmic, its incessant movement mirroring reality.
The Warli tribe live mainly in the Thane District, 150 km north of Bombay. They are mainly subsistence farmers who are very independent and guided in their way of life by their own system of religious belief. Their Gods are very rarely represented because they generally manifest in human, animal, inorganic or vegetal forms. Ramesh Laxman Hengadi, born in 1976, is the son of the head of one of the Warli tribal clans. He learnt Warli painting observing it during village festivals and marriages. He works as an artist and has participated in many exhibitions and educational programs in India and abroad.
Size (cms): 148(H) x 148(W)
Size (inches): 58.5(H) x 58.5(W)
