Madhubani's Soul

A SOLO SHOW BY Baua Devi

Baua Devi 

Born in 1940's in Jitwarpur Village in Bihar,
Baua Devi's paintings on paper explore an array of personal and mythological themes. One of her favorite subjects Is the nag kanya, or snake maiden, a creature with the torso and head of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a snake. The nag kanya resembles, as well, the snake goddess Manasa, whose attributes include the powers of destruction and regeneration. While such attributes echo those of the key Hindu god Shiva, they also may derive from the actual snakes that occupy the watery region where Baua Devi lives. The strength implicit in the image of a snake maiden-an image which Baua Devi has come to adopt as her own-evokes her own remarkable story of survival, perseverance, and success Born into the Mahapatra caste-the lowest of the five Brahmin castes, who traditionally perform ceremonies on the occasion or anniversary of a death-Baua Devi was married at the age of twelve to a man selected for her by her father, as was the norm in India in the 1950s. Her husband abused her, growing even more violent when she became pregnant at the age of nineteen. Her child died within a few days of birth. During this period of Baua Devi's life, the Mithila region, a normally fertile area between the Himalayas and the Ganges River, undergoing a blistering drought. Already one of the was poorest parts of India, Mithila in the mid-1960s faced widespread starvation. In 1965, an aid worker for the Indian government, Mr. Bhaskar Kulkarni, was sent by Mrs. Pupul Jayakar, a close friend of Indira Ghandi, to encourage the idea of executing on paper the paintings traditionally created by Mithill women on the walls and floors of their mud homes, a practice know as bhitti chitra. He supplied materials and helped to sell the resulting works through government handicraft shops in Delhi and other major Indian cities. Baua Devi was one of the youngest women to work with Kulkarni and was particularly influenced by his admonitions to paint freely, from her imagination. Whether Kulkarni was projecting Western models of individual artistic style or whether he promoted individuation because he felt it would increase sales, is unknown. In any case, the effect on Mithili culture was the emergence of a remarkable number of exceptionally talented artists with distinct and recognizable artistic visions This exhibition focuses on Baua Devi, by now one of the most respected artists in the Mithila community and certainly one of the most successful.
Baua Devi's style is notable for combining exquisite draughtsman ship, dynamic yet austere compositions, and brilliant coloring. (Much of the coloring in her work is now actually done by her husband, Jagannath.) Besides painting the nag kanya, Baua Devi's imagery includes scenes from folk tales and Hindu myths, images of gods and goddesses, and religious symbols such as the Shiva lingam. This exhibition includes two large, mural-scale paintings by Baua Devi, one depicting the life of Krishna and, the other, the Festiva of Chait taking place around a village pond. Baua Devi continues to live in Jitwarpur, the village where she Was born. Her paintings have been exhibited widely throughout India as well as at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and at the Mithila Museum in Tokamachi, Japan and Seattle, Art museum USA to name of few.