Fertile Still Wall Art

Fertile Still — 4 museum-grade prints that set the mood. 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 — a wet white kaolin slip over a dark base coat, combed and scratched away with a broken comb so the dark ground reads as line. The climbing lotus-and-creeper scroll, peopled with paired peacocks, cattle, deer and horses, is the fertility and union motif Khovar walls are made to carry. Sohrai is a harvest-season wall art of Hazaribagh district, Jharkhand, painted by women of tribal and Kurmi communities in natural earth pigments — manganese black, hematite red, kaolin white and ochre yellow — on a daubed mud wall to welcome cattle home after the rice harvest, around Diwali. The tree of life, loaded with birds, peacocks, deer and cattle, is a fertility and abundance motif on these walls — the whole living world held on one trunk.

Updated 22 Jun 2026