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a) Signed in Devnagari (lower right)
Acrylic and gouache on paper
10.5 x 14.5 in (27 x 36.8 cm)

b) Signed in Devnagari (lower right)
Acrylic and gouache on paper
10.5 x 14.5 in (27 x 36.8 cm)

c) Signed in Devnagari (lower right)
Acrylic and gouache on paper
10.5 x 14.5 in (27 x 36.8 cm)

d) Signed in Devnagari (lower right)
Acrylic and gouache on paper
10.75 x 14.75 in (27.6 x 37.6 cm)

e) Signed in Devnagari (lower right)
Acrylic and gouache on paper
10.5 x 14.5 in (27 x 36.8 cm)

f) Signed in Devnagari (lower right)
Acrylic and gouache on paper
10.75 x 14.75 in (27.6 x 37.6 cm)

(Set of six)


Ganga Devi Bhatt is a self-taught artist from Kondagaon in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state. In 1998, Bhatt and a few women from her community started working with the Mumbai-based artist Navjot Altaf on a project "exploring the potentials of collaborative practice between contemporary urban, and Adivasi folk artists." (Chaitanya Sambrani, Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India exhibition catalogue, Perth: Art Gallery of Western Australia and New York: Asia Society Museum and Queens Museum of Art, 2005, p. 60)

Thus began Bhatt's venture into the art stream, creating work in a completely new idiom, with no formal or academic precedents, while still retaining some of the Bastar traditions. Working in a cooperative studio environment with like-minded artists, Bhatt's main mediums are wood-carving and watercolours. She has produced monochromatic, low relief etchings on tree trunks or wooden plans, as well as series of bright watercolours on paper. With the latter, Bhatt often used both sides of the paper to paint, as supplies were often limited due to lack of access and scarce economic means.

Bhatt's art is akin to narrative pieces, distilled from her own life. The artist's work narrates autobiographical episodes of a young woman's journey in a village-marked by domestic violence, separation, ostracism, and an eventual resolution and finding of new love. In a larger socio-political context, Bhatt's work addresses social structures within an Adivasi community. "Bhatt's paintings represent the sublimation of psychological scarring and the assertion of an independent subjectivity that again challenges urban notions of the simplicity and collectivity of rural life." (Sambrani, p. 21) She is one of only a few women artists to have taken her art into the larger urban realm.

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