Mandla

Gond painting uses densely layered dots and lines to fill forms — animals, trees, birds, deities — with texture that seems to vibrate. The tiger, the peacock, the fish, and the tree of life are primary subjects. Backgrounds are filled completely; there is no empty space. The paintings do not illustrate stories — they are equivalent to prayers. Making the natural world visible in this precise, attentive way is an act of devotion.

Traditionally, Gond art was made on house walls, floors, and during ceremonies — ephemeral work that was remade when the rain washed it away or the house was replastered. In the 1970s, Jangarh Singh Shyam — a Gond artist from Patangarh village in Mandla — began painting on paper and cloth at the invitation of J. Swaminathan of the Bharat Bhavan art centre in Bhopal. His work brought Gond art to global attention.

Jangarh Kalam — literally "Jangarh's pen" — is the name given to the distinctive style of Gond painting that Jangarh Singh Shyam developed and that his students and successors continue. The style is characterised by large, energetic figures rendered in black ink with coloured dot and line fills, on paper, cloth, or canvas. The figures have enormous expressive presence — particularly the animals, which seem to carry the entire weight of the forest in their forms.

After Jangarh's death in 2001, his students — including his son Ram Singh Urveti and members of the wider Patangarh artist community — continued the tradition. The community of Gond artists working in Mandla, Dindori, and Patangarh is now one of India's most active art communities, with work in international collections.

Dhokra is lost-wax brass casting — one of the oldest metal-casting techniques in the world, used continuously in India for at least 4000 years. The process: a beeswax figure is modelled in complete detail; it is encased in layers of clay and dung; the clay mould is fired, melting out the wax and leaving a perfect negative; molten brass is poured in; the clay is broken away to reveal the cast object.

The surface of Dhokra pieces carries the texture of the wax — organic, slightly rough, warm in the hand. No two pieces are identical. The figures produced — animals, deities, human forms — have a quality of solidity and warmth that cast metal rarely achieves. Dhokra makers in the Bastar tradition (extending into southern MP) work as itinerant craftspeople, moving between villages to work near fuel sources and markets.

• Gond painting
• Jangarh Kalam
• Dhokra brass casting
• Lost-wax technique
• Patangarh art village
• Satpura forest culture