Warm Ochre Wall Art

Warm Ochre — 57 museum-grade prints in this palette. Sohrai is a harvest-season wall art of Hazaribagh district, Jharkhand, painted by women of tribal and Kurmi communities to welcome cattle home after the rice harvest, around Diwali. Lac — the resin secreted by insects on plateau trees — is a forest produce of the region, softened over a flame and rolled into the bright red bangles worn at weddings and festivals. Ayyappa, also called Sastha or Dharmasastha, is the deity of Sabarimala, one of the most visited pilgrimage shrines in India, reached after a strict forty-one-day vratham. He is classically shown in the seated yogic posture with the yoga-pattam band around the knees, and his vahana is the tiger. The Cheena vala — the shore-operated cantilever lift nets at Fort Kochi — are among Kerala's most recognised sights, by tradition linked to Chinese traders and the Malabar coast's long maritime contact. This print sets them inside bhitti chitra, Kerala's temple-mural tradition that flourished roughly from the 16th to 19th century and is still painted today: flat panchavarna pigments (red, yellow, green, black, white over an ochre ground), a bold lamp-black outline and the school's elongated lotus-shaped eyes.

Updated 22 Jun 2026