Overview:

“The Art of the Warli in Durham” is a project that involved members of the Durham community in the co-creation of a massive mural in the style of Warli – an indigenous art form from Western India that uses minimalistic forms and vibrant patterns to reflect everyday lives and events. The artists offered a series of live-streamed lessons in which participants learned basic Warli painting techniques and contributed sketches to be involved in the mural’s design. The final mural captures the dynamic nature of Durham’s landscapes as told by its people – From our rural tobacco-growing past, to our vibrant urban present.

It was created as a part Season 3 of the Public Space Project, a program by Downtown Durham, Inc. that provides grants to individuals and organizations to bring creative, free-of-charge experiences to downtown. The following narrative was written by the artists.

About Warli Art:

Culture expresses itself in many ways, one of which is in the art of its people. Indian culture, as it is seen today, is an eclectic mix of people and traditions. The earliest known art form in India is tribal art. While each tribal art form has its own history and influences, there is one that by virtue of its inherent simplicity, commands attention – the unique art of the Warli tribe from Western India, that deals with the relatively mundane happenings of daily life.

Inspired by nature

Warli art can be best understood through the eyes of the tribe: their religious habits, traditions and folklore. The Warli pay homage to various forms of nature – the sun, the moon, and the gods of thunder, lightning, wind and rain, the trees, fields, mountains and rivers, animals and birds. With these paintings, they convey and reinforce their bond with nature.

Geometry as art

Warli paintings have a basic graphic vocabulary of circles, triangles, and squares, which become the building blocks for an art form that has remained almost unchanged through the ages. A distinctive feature of Warli art is that it is stark. With brown mud backgrounds and drawings in white, the paintings bring an element of freshness to the day-to-day events they symbolize. 

Their linear nature and monochromatic hues make them similar to pre-historic cave paintings and Aboriginal Art in execution. Warli paintings usually depict scenes of human figures engaged in activities like hunting, dancing, sowing and harvesting. These paintings also serve social and religious aspirations of the local people, since it is believed that these paintings invoke powers of the Gods.

The tradition continues

People admire Warli paintings because they give us an insight into the daily activities of the Warlis. Today, Warli paintings have become ubiquitous and are more popular in India than ever before. Despite the challenges of maintaining traditions in our transient and fast-paced world, the Warli paintings are a reminder of the rich tribal culture that continues to thrive. 

Sampada was fortunate to be able to learn this art form from the Warli tribe members. Here is an effort by us to paint a mural in Durham using this art style and bring it into our everyday lives.

About the Artists:

SAMPADA KODAGALI AGARWAL is a self-taught visual artist, who has spent more than 15 years exploring traditional Indian folk and tribal arts. Her work has been accepted in a number of exhibitions, shows and she is part of various community outreach and philanthropic causes. One of her Warli works was accepted at NCMA for the ‘Art of the Auction’ in May 2013. Her latest project acceptances include a window art public project, run by the Town of Chapel Hill and a collaboration with IIT-Bombay students. She is also a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) – her explorations with Zentangle® as a CZT since 2012, have opened up new doors of collaboration and creation with students and artists around the globe. 

https://linktr.ee/ansimit

RAMYA SUNDARESAN KAPADIA is a Carnatic vocalist and Bharatanatyam dancer. She is fast making a name for herself as a solo Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer. Ramya has written, choreographed and scored the music for several dance theater productions for Bharatanatyam dancers all over the United States and abroad. She is passionate about her work and uses it to create awareness about social issues, successfully fundraising for several organizations all over the U.S.  She is the recipient of the Ella Pratt Emerging Artist Award and the North Carolina Dance Alliance Choreography Fellowship. She currently runs the Natyarpana School of Dance & Music in Durham, NC. She holds Masters Degrees in Medical Physics and Neuroscience and now pursues the arts full-time.

https://www.ramyaskapadia.com

                                                    Ramya (left) and Sampada (right)

The teamwork:

Common ideologies of beauty, flow and discipline drew both Sampada and Ramya to each other’s works. Over the past 10 years, they have supported and been inspired by each other’s creative talent and have actively engaged with the community through music, dance and art. They looked forward to this artistic collaboration that helped each of them contribute using their respective fields of expertise and grow.

About the Project:

The idea:

It all started with a fairly innocuous idea, hatched by Sampada and Ramya; that blossomed into this magnificent mural in Durham – a one-of-a-kind feat, both in scale and content.  Sampada had always been toying with this idea of bringing Warli art to the Triangle area on a large scale. When Ramya reached out to Sampada for applying to the Public Space Project, Sampada was thrilled to collaborate. Once they got together, ideas flew around and ultimately landed on a proposal to marry the art with the history of Durham. Depicting the changing landscape of Durham, a city that has grown into a great urban hub, was a natural conclusion. 

Warli, an indigenous art form of Western India, reflects the everyday lives and events of its people and so was the perfect vehicle to portray the dynamic nature of Durham’s landscapes from its rural cotton and tobacco-growing past to its vibrant, urban present using this minimalistic but expressive art form. 

The people:

Sampada and Ramya have a number of people to thank for making it possible for this idea to gain fruition. First and foremost, they are eternally grateful to Rachel Wexler and Connor Nielsen from Downtown Durham Inc. for having the faith in them and sharing their vision. It was a pleasure working with both of them! The Public Space Project 2020 provided them the perfect platform to showcase this art and its limitless creativity. Please find more information about other similar events supported by DDI on their FB page – https://www.facebook.com/DowntownDurham

They would like to thank Patrick Mucklow and Jeanette Shaffer at the Museum of Durham History, for helping them fill in on the historical milestones of Durham from the early 1700s to today. 

They would like to thank Joe Lemanski, the owner of the building at 313 Foster Street, the venue of our mural, for his support and for allowing them to use this landmark building to showcase their art. They would like to thank the staff at Lexitas including Sue Rains, the office manager of Lexitas, for their support – periodic checks of their wellbeing by Sue during the days when they were hanging off the wall were greatly appreciated!

They would like to thank their spouses and family for pitching in when needed and staying out of our way, when not. 🙂 Without their unwavering support, this huge undertaking would not have been undertaken or completed. The final step of varnishing the entire wall would have been impossible, if not for the timely help by Anuj and Amit to iron out all the kinks.

They would surely like to thank the local Durham Sherwin Williams store staff for helping suggest the preferred paints and varnish. They would also like to thank Si (Jay) Statham for his guidance on suggesting the right boom life to rent, and the process of getting the boom lift operator’s certification – a step that they undertook in record time. They would also like to thank Mike for patiently giving them the hour long practical instruction on the boom lift – without which they would have been truly handicapped. 

The passersby, both the daily as well as occasional ones, were truly our motivation. While up there on the boom lift, working on their mural, it was quite heartening to hear a young voice call out – “wow” – that was their validation, right there! Those young, curious enthusiastic ones were their true admirers and they can still hear the ring of those excited voices in their ears! The art style was quite foreign to all the viewers, but the content was local and so very relatable! This merging of the East and the West was the true winner of this effort.

The community outreach:

The idea was to educate and interact with the community while painting the mural. But then, we got hit with a pandemic and so all possibilities of in-person interactions were shelved. Instead, they suggested online workshops to share information about the art. That initiative was greatly appreciated! It also helped them connect with a much larger audience – both local and global. Plus the fact that these workshops are available for anyone to view in the long term makes the effort taken more lasting.

Here are the links to the workshop recordings, for your ease of reference:

https://www.facebook.com/sampada.k.agarwal/videos/10219601730026959/?t=631

https://www.facebook.com/sampada.k.agarwal/videos/10219677807688853/?t=179

There were a number of participants in both the workshops – their interest in the art was quite heartening. Quite a few of them also worked on their own stories conveyed using this art style, which made the tutorials so worthwhile!

Connecting the art and history:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

About the Warli icons:

Onsite shenanigans and the boom lift:

BONUS — Scavenger Hunt!

Can you spot all 42 items in the mural?

1. An owl	22. Stand up paddler
2. A classroom	23. A recent graduate
3. A child sitting on the dad’s shoulder	24. A snake
4. A weeping willow	25. A tobacco field
5. A microscope	26. A Victorian couple going to church
6. An anthill	27. A band playing music
7. Number of ants in the anthill	28. A scientist
8. An ambulance	29. Three people on scooters
9. The word “DURHAM”	30. A helicopter in the sky
10. Three deer	31. Library
11. A guy fishing using a net	32. A newly married couple
12. A hunter with a bow and arrow	33. Kids playing basketball
13. Chickens picking grain	34. A multilevel car parking lot
14. A photographer	35. A bicycle rider
15. A schoolhouse	36. The Duke Chapel
16. Kids playing soccer	37. A pine forest
17. A guy serenading his girlfriend	38. A girl wearing a hat with a feather riding a horse
18. A grist mill	39. A railroad under construction
19. Yoga enthusiasts	40. A cotton field
20. A patient on a stretcher	41. A pregnant mother working on the laptop
21. Children hopping and skipping to school	42. The Durham Bulls Athletic Park