An enumeration of the current practices of young Warli artists Tushar and Mayur Vayeda, Rajesh Vangad hailing from Devgaon, Dahanu.
Tribal painters are popularly imagined to be painting on the walls of the cave in their aboriginal attire with bare bodies and the skin painted in organic abstract patterns. Today, the kind of attire for Warli tribe has become ceremonial, ritual purpose and the garbs of these forest inhabitants are indifferent to any urban dweller. With shifting lifestyles, the community members have sought to different occupations and employment available in their neighbourhood. With this in the mind, we shall explore the nature of the Warli practice today, the newer idioms they have adopted to keep the tradition alive with a relevance to their changed geography and surrounding habitat.
Warli has become an art form more practised by several non-Warli community members. Though there are both positive and adverse connotations to it, Padmashree awardee Jivya Soma Mashe a resident of Ganjad village in Dahanu, Maharashtra is credited for a widespread reach of Warli. A dynamic proponent of the native visual form,Mashe’s dynamism lies in bringing Warli painting, beyond the confines of ritual based imagery and depicting the nature in myriad compositions. His innovations in the compositions and meticulously formulated folklore are a treat to the sight of any viewer for its sheer reverberating visuals. An international figure, the humble artist who passed away on May 15, 2018, at the age of 84 is highly revered. A befitting tribute to him would be to sensitise the viewers to appreciate the indigenous processes and significance of region-specific practices.
I was introduced to two promising young artists Tushar Vayeda, Mayur Vayeda, and eventually to their elder Rajesh Vangad who studied under the tutorship of Jivya Mashe. After pursuing digital animation and business management course Tushar and Mayur respectively decided to resume to their roots and with a driving inclination have successfully ventured into their creative tradition making a mark on the global map following the footsteps of Jivya.
Writing Warli was fundamentally ritual based and originally produced on residence walls by married women evoking the sanctity desired for occasions like childbirth, weddings called chauk. Warli is considered to be written or inscribed rather than painted. Chauk the square enclosure of several lines inscribed with the central female deity-Palghat devi, a ladder, sun and moon as a witness, a comb and other auspicious elements. The iconographic system is diverse with a range of symbols bearing specific meanings and function are religiously maintained as part of the chauk. Usually, the activity of writing is performed by married women and widows sing the ritual songs. The sons are the soul of ceremonies. With the advent of practice on paper, the mobility changed from static wall mural to display scrolls and many men took it up as a source of revenue with several government aids for empowerment. About thirty or more native males are into writing traditional Warli using paper or canvas surfaces and commission-based works.
As part of the shifts in lifestyle, an unfortunate development that is noted by the young artists is of the weakening relationship of the children with their land, their inhabiting nature. They carry mobile phones instead of toys and rural games and are barely observant and connect to the heritage. Further, the traditional narratives are getting lost because of trickling knowledge downward the generations. Some senior Warli-writers prefer not to share them for vested interests.
Originally freshly harvested rice powder was used for the traditional white pigment, however, poster colours, acrylics are being used with brushes on paper and canvas as surface, for the ease of utility. Perhaps, new elements like electronic objects, vehicles, planes, modern buildings too have become part of the Warli nature. While nature and surrounding was their original source of rendering, today their neighbourhood is populated with concrete houses, motor vehicles, telephones, mobiles, railways etc. The Vayeda duo uses cow dung sourced during the monsoons to prepare the cloth surface that gives a range of deep olive-green hues to sepia shades. The colour fades towards the end of monsoon with a reduction in water content of the grazing land. The local cows graze in the surrounding neighbourhood yielding a good raw material for the surface preparation. A mixture of Cow dung and PVA solution is used for priming muslin cloth to be used as the surface. Brush like a tool made of kasar bamboo was used as a traditional instrument but very few use it as the stylus.
Generally, each narrative is completed in a single painting. Mayur and Tushar are trying to spread it out onto multiple paintings to elaborately describe the tales with utmost details increasing the scope of visual exploration. While, there are several traditional stories, but novel idioms are being used to illustrate them. Especially the new/modern forms carry the influence of seeing nature on the television sets or study of science by the duo. These are evident in the adapted shapes of marine life and other flora and fauna. One of the significant stories that the brothers are pursuing is of the maha-pralay – the great floods that have stark similarity to the Genesis story of Noah’s ark. Bottle Gourd was used to saving the lives of organisms that grew for hundred years on the land and eventually the interior was prepared for the floods by ants and other insects and a pair of selective creatures were accommodated. The gourd then survived all the inhabitants for several days and banked to a land mass. The Vayeda brothers are portraying this tale in a series of paintings.
Along with the prime activity of Warli-writing Tushar and Mayur are actively involved with a Japanese NGO on a ‘green’ project called noko that means no in the Warli dialect, to create sustainable structures and organic agricultural practices including beekeeping. Their family history is an illustrious one with their grandfather starting the first school in the village at his residence. Their mother continues to serve as a school teacher educating the newer generations of the tribe.
Rajesh Vangad, Shantaram Gorkhana, Sadashiv Mashe, Anil Vangad, Hareshwar Vanga, Balu Dumada, Manoj Bhadange, Kishore Mashe, Amit Dombare, are amongst the few artists who are creatively innovating and adopting idioms for newness in the flow.
Rajesh has extensively travelled all over the world showcasing his innovative Warli skills. The exit gate of terminal two of the international airport in Mumbai flaunts a special Warli that is automated to switch into a new image (set of three images) periodically. He and Tushar have decorated the huge facade wall of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel to create a positive atmosphere for the ailing patients. One of the main highlights of Rajesh’s work is the collaborative work Fields of Sight” (2013 - ongoing) with the photographer Gauri Gill that got showcased at the Documenta 2014. The achromatic photographs by Gauri record the landscape of the village and industrial developments with the Warli artist as a conscious observer of the happenings. Rajesh contributed by inking his responses on the photographs visualising the multi-dimensional existence from the past and the present. The imagery bears Warli iconic drawings of rivers, animist ritual, botanical species, a sky veiled with birds in flight over the sea, deforested mountains as well as new imagery to record such events as migration to the cities or the advent of telephone towers and cell phones.
The value system of the artists holds the thread to the future of Warli and its painterly tradition. There are a variety of painters working on craft objects, textiles etc. But some of them personally don’t encourage commodification. Some elders protest the use of Warli on packaging, making it a commercial design element as opposed to its sacred significance. It’s now upon us, the readers, the connoisseurs of Warli whether to promote fallacious practices or to encourage sustainability.
The data for the article is based upon personal interviews of the artists and visit to Ganjad, Dahanu.
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| Tushar and Mayur Vayeda, Gathering of Gods, Poster Colour on Cowdung primed canvas. ca. 2016 |
Tribal painters are popularly imagined to be painting on the walls of the cave in their aboriginal attire with bare bodies and the skin painted in organic abstract patterns. Today, the kind of attire for Warli tribe has become ceremonial, ritual purpose and the garbs of these forest inhabitants are indifferent to any urban dweller. With shifting lifestyles, the community members have sought to different occupations and employment available in their neighbourhood. With this in the mind, we shall explore the nature of the Warli practice today, the newer idioms they have adopted to keep the tradition alive with a relevance to their changed geography and surrounding habitat.
 |
| Rajesh Vangad, City Life |
Warli has become an art form more practised by several non-Warli community members. Though there are both positive and adverse connotations to it, Padmashree awardee Jivya Soma Mashe a resident of Ganjad village in Dahanu, Maharashtra is credited for a widespread reach of Warli. A dynamic proponent of the native visual form,Mashe’s dynamism lies in bringing Warli painting, beyond the confines of ritual based imagery and depicting the nature in myriad compositions. His innovations in the compositions and meticulously formulated folklore are a treat to the sight of any viewer for its sheer reverberating visuals. An international figure, the humble artist who passed away on May 15, 2018, at the age of 84 is highly revered. A befitting tribute to him would be to sensitise the viewers to appreciate the indigenous processes and significance of region-specific practices.
 |
| Jivya Soma Mhase at his home in 2015. © Gauri Gill |
I was introduced to two promising young artists Tushar Vayeda, Mayur Vayeda, and eventually to their elder Rajesh Vangad who studied under the tutorship of Jivya Mashe. After pursuing digital animation and business management course Tushar and Mayur respectively decided to resume to their roots and with a driving inclination have successfully ventured into their creative tradition making a mark on the global map following the footsteps of Jivya.
Writing Warli was fundamentally ritual based and originally produced on residence walls by married women evoking the sanctity desired for occasions like childbirth, weddings called chauk. Warli is considered to be written or inscribed rather than painted. Chauk the square enclosure of several lines inscribed with the central female deity-Palghat devi, a ladder, sun and moon as a witness, a comb and other auspicious elements. The iconographic system is diverse with a range of symbols bearing specific meanings and function are religiously maintained as part of the chauk. Usually, the activity of writing is performed by married women and widows sing the ritual songs. The sons are the soul of ceremonies. With the advent of practice on paper, the mobility changed from static wall mural to display scrolls and many men took it up as a source of revenue with several government aids for empowerment. About thirty or more native males are into writing traditional Warli using paper or canvas surfaces and commission-based works.
As part of the shifts in lifestyle, an unfortunate development that is noted by the young artists is of the weakening relationship of the children with their land, their inhabiting nature. They carry mobile phones instead of toys and rural games and are barely observant and connect to the heritage. Further, the traditional narratives are getting lost because of trickling knowledge downward the generations. Some senior Warli-writers prefer not to share them for vested interests.
Originally freshly harvested rice powder was used for the traditional white pigment, however, poster colours, acrylics are being used with brushes on paper and canvas as surface, for the ease of utility. Perhaps, new elements like electronic objects, vehicles, planes, modern buildings too have become part of the Warli nature. While nature and surrounding was their original source of rendering, today their neighbourhood is populated with concrete houses, motor vehicles, telephones, mobiles, railways etc. The Vayeda duo uses cow dung sourced during the monsoons to prepare the cloth surface that gives a range of deep olive-green hues to sepia shades. The colour fades towards the end of monsoon with a reduction in water content of the grazing land. The local cows graze in the surrounding neighbourhood yielding a good raw material for the surface preparation. A mixture of Cow dung and PVA solution is used for priming muslin cloth to be used as the surface. Brush like a tool made of kasar bamboo was used as a traditional instrument but very few use it as the stylus.
Generally, each narrative is completed in a single painting. Mayur and Tushar are trying to spread it out onto multiple paintings to elaborately describe the tales with utmost details increasing the scope of visual exploration. While, there are several traditional stories, but novel idioms are being used to illustrate them. Especially the new/modern forms carry the influence of seeing nature on the television sets or study of science by the duo. These are evident in the adapted shapes of marine life and other flora and fauna. One of the significant stories that the brothers are pursuing is of the maha-pralay – the great floods that have stark similarity to the Genesis story of Noah’s ark. Bottle Gourd was used to saving the lives of organisms that grew for hundred years on the land and eventually the interior was prepared for the floods by ants and other insects and a pair of selective creatures were accommodated. The gourd then survived all the inhabitants for several days and banked to a land mass. The Vayeda brothers are portraying this tale in a series of paintings.
 |
| L to R Mayur Vayeda, Nikhil Purohit and Tushar Vayeda |
Along with the prime activity of Warli-writing Tushar and Mayur are actively involved with a Japanese NGO on a ‘green’ project called noko that means no in the Warli dialect, to create sustainable structures and organic agricultural practices including beekeeping. Their family history is an illustrious one with their grandfather starting the first school in the village at his residence. Their mother continues to serve as a school teacher educating the newer generations of the tribe.
Rajesh Vangad, Shantaram Gorkhana, Sadashiv Mashe, Anil Vangad, Hareshwar Vanga, Balu Dumada, Manoj Bhadange, Kishore Mashe, Amit Dombare, are amongst the few artists who are creatively innovating and adopting idioms for newness in the flow.
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Rajesh has extensively travelled all over the world showcasing his innovative Warli skills. The exit gate of terminal two of the international airport in Mumbai flaunts a special Warli that is automated to switch into a new image (set of three images) periodically. He and Tushar have decorated the huge facade wall of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel to create a positive atmosphere for the ailing patients. One of the main highlights of Rajesh’s work is the collaborative work Fields of Sight” (2013 - ongoing) with the photographer Gauri Gill that got showcased at the Documenta 2014. The achromatic photographs by Gauri record the landscape of the village and industrial developments with the Warli artist as a conscious observer of the happenings. Rajesh contributed by inking his responses on the photographs visualising the multi-dimensional existence from the past and the present. The imagery bears Warli iconic drawings of rivers, animist ritual, botanical species, a sky veiled with birds in flight over the sea, deforested mountains as well as new imagery to record such events as migration to the cities or the advent of telephone towers and cell phones.
The value system of the artists holds the thread to the future of Warli and its painterly tradition. There are a variety of painters working on craft objects, textiles etc. But some of them personally don’t encourage commodification. Some elders protest the use of Warli on packaging, making it a commercial design element as opposed to its sacred significance. It’s now upon us, the readers, the connoisseurs of Warli whether to promote fallacious practices or to encourage sustainability.
The data for the article is based upon personal interviews of the artists and visit to Ganjad, Dahanu.
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