Riya Siddhacharjee
If food satisfies our hunger and good conversation satisfies our heart! Then this form of art will quench your thirst for curiosity. Welcome to the village of Painters where every painting depicts a story, every painting deals with some social cry. It is a place where award-winning artists visit at least once in their lifetime. Welcome to the world of ‘soulful painting’…!
A place filled with Patachitrakars (folk artists)who have persevered what was about to get lost in near future. That colorful frame depicts stories. This place sings the tale of some unknown world far from our daily mundane hustle-bustle of the city (it may metropolitan city). Naya will show you how they can give a competition to cities Graffiti walls have the power to showcase the quintessential folk art. Not many of us know that ‘Patta’ literally means ‘cloth’ and ‘Chitra’ means ‘Picture’ and the painters are called Patras.
If one wall is painted in luminescent yellow, the other wall will make you mesmerized with the red painting of tongue in 2D. Some pictures will depict, crocodiles devouring their prey which is colored in bright green paints. This village will make you feel more like one has teleported you to a world of color Platte. Even the Patachitra’s come in various sizes. No doubt it is mesmerizing. Speaking about the residence, there live 75 patua families in Naya. The best part is at least one of each house having at least one patua. The houses painted BRIGHTLY with Pat motifs. Traditional folk art to a modern art form can be found. Some of the images depict stories of fishes while others portray events like the Twin Towers attack or Tsunami.
They don’t have money for buying colors and paint their walls. Hence, they make their natural paints that are prepared in coconut shells. They store those paints in plastic jars for years for round use. They even use a fruit much similar to pomegranate but has thorns. This fruit is used for red color. As the seeds are grind and mix with water and stay on the walls and skin for a longer amount of time. The interesting fact is, they use a homemade color- Yellow from turmeric, black from charcoal, and the color green from Segun tree. You may ask, how they make white? They use Kusum mati from the bottom of ponds.
