Calm Wall Art

Calm — 62 museum-grade prints that set the mood. DESIGN BRIEF: the brief was the moment after the cut, so the hero is a large oval medallion holding the threshing floor itself — pairs of yoked oxen walking a circle over the grain while figures drive them and toss it with winnowing forks — and the rest of the harvest stacks in bands above and below. We held the fill to medium and kept the fish-net frame open rather than a packed mesh, with clear oxblood ground around the oval so the oxen, the sheaves and the winnowing read at a glance. Khovar is the marriage wall art of Hazaribagh district, Jharkhand, combed by women of tribal and Kurmi communities onto the bridal chamber before a wedding, using a sgraffito technique — wet white kaolin slip over a dark base coat, combed and scratched away with a broken comb so the dark ground reads as line. Paired fish are a classic Khovar fertility motif, promising plenty and increase to the new household, alongside lotus and peacocks. Kalighat Pat grew up in 19th-century Kolkata, painted by migrant patua (chitrakar) scroll-painters who settled near the Kalighat Kali temple and sold quick watercolour souvenirs to pilgrims. Working on mill-made paper with a bold single black brush outline and soft 'boneless' shaded strokes on a plain ground, they painted gods and goddesses alongside what is often called India's first modern social satire — sharp, affectionate caricatures of the colonial 'babu' and the hypocrisies of Calcutta life.

Updated 22 Jun 2026