Balanced Symmetry Wall Art

Balanced Symmetry — 2 museum-grade prints that set the mood. Dvarapalas — the gate guardians who stand in pairs at the entrance of a temple sanctum or gopuram — are a fixed part of South Indian temple iconography, often shown fierce-faced and clubbed, mirrored on left and right of the doorway. Here they are painted in 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, the makara-toranam arch and the school's elongated lotus-shaped eyes. The padma mandala — the lotus laid out as a radial diagram with a deity at its centre and figures ringed around like petals — is a recurring form in Kerala temple painting, often spread across sanctum ceilings as well as walls. Here it is rendered in 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, the radial lotus geometry and the school's elongated lotus-shaped eyes.

Updated 22 Jun 2026