art focus – traversing terrains – s.h. raza


Bindu (1984)

“You have to concentrate on one idea. I usually offer one advice to young men, concentrate on one woman. One woman gives everything. One idea, in the same way, is sufficient for an artist.”
~ S.H. Raza

For Sayed Haider Raza [1922 – 2016], his one idea was the Bindu. The dot. He never tired of exploring and expressing it. The brackish circle against a passionate red square hanging on the wall in front of me reiterated his words, sucking me in, into another world. A world which Raza saw and was determined to give a voice to. Continue reading

india travel shot: pithora painting, the art of ritual in tribal madhya pradesh

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I came across this fantastical painting in the Tribal Museum at Bhopal. It would be easy to mistake it for art. But it is not. It is instead a ritual practiced by the Rathva Adivasis in Madhya Pradesh. Continue reading

preserving a disappearing heritage: the bagh cave paintings at bhopal state museum

Nestled deep in the heart of India, on the banks of the seasonal Baghani river in Madhya Pradesh, are a series of nine rock-cut Buddhist temples covered with jewel-like murals. Known as the Bagh Caves, they date back to the 4th to 6th Centuries AD. According to legend they were built by a Buddhist monk called Dataka.

Contemporaries of the better-known Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, only five survive of its original nine. Very few even know of these five. I for one, did not. Did you? Continue reading