Hopeful Wall Art

Hopeful — 8 museum-grade prints that set the mood. Aipan is the ritual floor- and wall-art of the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, made traditionally by Kumaoni women with white rice-paste (biswar) drawn by fingertip onto a geru — red-ochre earth — ground. Harela is a major Kumaoni festival of greenery and the coming monsoon: seven grains are sown in baskets about ten days before the rains and the pale sprouts (the 'harela') are cut and blessed. Mata ni Pachedi means 'the cloth of the Mother Goddess' — a ritual shrine textile of the Vaghri / Devipujak ('worshippers of the Goddess') community of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, who, barred from temples, painted the Goddess on cloth to make their own portable shrine. The tradition rings the Mother with community life. Pithora is the ritual wall-painting tradition of the Rathwa, Bhil and Bhilala Adivasi communities of Chhota Udepur in eastern Gujarat and the adjoining belt of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. A Pithora is often vowed for the prosperity that good rains bring, so the monsoon sky sits naturally within the celestial register the Lakhara opens with sun and moon.

Updated 22 Jun 2026