The colors in the paintings are like various life experiences of the artist.
Each of them tells a different story with different emotions projecting out of it, and one such artist who expressed the most out of herself through her art and became renowned worldwide is Bharati Dayal.
Bharti Dayal was born in Samastipur in 1961 and grew up in the Darbhanga district of Bihar, in the Mithila area, which is renowned for its Madhubani folk painting style.
Her mother and grandmother taught her Madhubani painting from an early age.
Despite her formal education and master's degree in science, she studied painting from her mother and other elders in her family, painted Alpana on the floor, and sketched epic scenes on the walls to celebrate auspicious occasions.
She continued developing and perfecting her talents in her leisure time, using natural vegetable colors and broken rice paste on handmade paper, cotton and silk fabric, and canvases.
Its rich colors and thick shape distinguish her art in Madhubani style, and it has a novel feel due to its incorporation of modern images with folk imprints and philosophical foundations. Radha-Krishna and other deities revered in the region are the main characters in her works.
She is an outspoken supporter of Madhubani art and a guide as well as a mentor to aspiring folk artists.
She has worked hard to introduce innovation to the traditional art forms used in Mithila, and she maintains an art studio in New Delhi.
She has taken it upon herself to assist other female artists in her region, advising them on how to improve their work.
Her art has been shown in various exhibits in India and internationally since 1991. It may be seen, among other places, in the Bihar Pavilion at the India International Trade Fair in New Delhi and documentary films produced by French Television and Discovery Channel.
The book 'The New Bihar' includes seven of Dayal's Madhubani paintings, which combine traditional art with contemporary modern topics. Her artwork for the book's cover features a girl riding a bicycle, representing "women's empowerment and the search for knowledge," and a fish, symbolizing the topic of "rainbow agriculture," or the mixing of agricultural endeavors to increase rural income.
She has won National, State, AIFACS, and Millennium Art Awards, and she has also worked to promote women's art from her own area.
Bharti Dayal has bridged the gap between the Madhubani technique and its modern art form.
Bharti created and single-handedly promoted modern and traditional art forms through newspapers, public venues, and social media.
Bharti has been an asset to Indian art and culture since her days as a kid in Mithila, through all of her efforts in reinventing and revitalizing this national art form as she was also raising two children of her own.
Throughout her 40-year journey, she has resurrected the traditional Madhubani Art Form and guaranteed that it receives considerable respect and a distinct standing among India's premier art forms.
Bharti Dayal's paintings are essentially an amalgamation of the old Madhubani art form and modern times, without deviating from the main elements of the Mithila tradition.
Author: Akash R. Ekka
Editor: Rachita Biswas