Folk and Minor Art Tradition of India

India is a unique country. It's one of the very ancient cultures, the Indian subcontinent like China, Japan, Egypt, Persia, Africa, etc. India is also a country where many cultures, religions have been interlinked, shared for centuries. Different kinds of traditional arts, crafts, dance, architecture, and music have been inspired by each other very homogeneously. A terracotta oil lamp has retained its original form for thousands of years. Although am a contemporary Indian artist, am deeply interested in the traditional art forms which are still alive, made, and used even today. In spite of various invasions, food, language, arts and crafts have survived. The Colonial rule realized the richness of our culture and did not want us to progress and gave us an inferiority complex. Our traditional art forms are very powerful, poetic, and lyrical, whereas our contemporary art is borrowed from the west and ignored the richness of our heritage. The kind of sculpture with monolithic rocks at Elora, Ajanta murals, the temple sculpture of Mahabalipuram, Konark, etc. have a distinct poetic fervor, India is a gold mine for artists and scholars to comprehend and digest, one life is not enough. Although I am a contemporary artist, am deeply influenced and enamored by our art forms. My role model is Kumar Gandharva, Bhimsen Joshi, Kalidas and Kabir.