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Isn’t this work remarkable, modern and clean. Devi can design like no one’s business.The minimal color, the line work, the use of white space and wild detail is considered, planned and so natural. The work just flows. Look at the lovely Monkey God, Haruman, at peace, running complete with a snake in his hand, and the greenery moving out of his way as she speeds by. And in the Madhubani tradition, there are the fish…always the fish confirming fertility.
I found this book on Alibris (affordable!) and have it coming. There are more images that I know we will share in the future from this exceptional artist. It was interesting that chatting with Marc V. today about folk art traditions, I was musing that we really do not have an American folk art tradition and he cleverly pointed out that we are a new culture (200 yrs) and this sort of tradition takes time. Come to think of it, isn’t graffiti a folk tradition? And there are the odd offshoots like Grandma Moses, the PA Germans, Watts Tower, Hobo art….but like our culture, there isnt a single thread….but a multiplicity of them. How many centuries old do we need to be as a culture before we have a national folk style?
Speaking of folk art, and folk style….check out this amazing Czech book posted by the amazing A Journey Around My Skull ( A Forest Story with illustrations by Rudolph Mate (1929)— Very Successionist inspired with wonderful pattern on pattern with basic color as suggested by the simple printing presses. Inspiring. I should google Mates and see what else he has done. This work is gorgeous. I want to see more.
Must go. The phone is ringing. Things need to get done and changed.