The Open Studio / Mrunmayee Chaitanya Alandkar
Mrunmayee Chaitanya Alandkar
Suvarna mrug phad painting
The deer is walking calmly into the oldest trap
Red, then black, then yellow: three borders hold the forest in.
The tree is a dark cloud of small inked flowers.
Under it, a blue skirt blooms with red suns.
A blue cloud curls once and stays curled.
The deer is the colour of turmeric, lifting one hoof.
No one has stood up yet.
The work
Mrunmayee Chaitanya Alandkar paints a scene from the Ramayana in the style of phad, a tradition of painted storytelling. A golden deer steps across green ground. Under a dark tree, a man with a bow and a woman in a blue skirt sit close together. Every shape has a firm black outline. Alandkar fills each one with flat colour in gouache poster paints. She moves between pencil, acrylics, poster colours, mixed media and digital work. Her college is MIT ADT University in Pune.
- Theme
- Temptation in the forest
- Material
- Gouache poster paints on paper
- Size
- 29.7 × 21 cm
- Year
- 2024
- Edition
- Single piece
- Framed
- Yes
- About the artist
- MIT ADT University
- From
- Pune
- Code
- RC-4186
In the artist’s words
Art, for me, is a way of giving shape to thoughts and emotions that are sometimes difficult to put into words. I enjoy observing small details, experimenting with forms and colours and turning an idea in my mind into something tangible. My work moves between pencil, acrylics, poster colours,mixed media and digital art, with each medium allowing me to express a different side of my imagination. The process is not always easy. I often struggle with translating what I envision onto paper or a screen, especially when proportions, perspective, colours or the final composition do not turn out as I imagined. There have been moments of frustration and self-doubt, but…
