Black: An Artist's Tribute

Description

"The rightful place for an artist, his real world, is a pot of black ink. I believe it contains all the magic, all the forms, everything that human beings can imagine and render..." says Mithila artist Santhosh Kumar Das. In this poetic memoir of his growth into art, he pays a poignant tribute to the muses that transformed him into an artist - the greatest of them being his mother, along with the other women of the household who practised this originally female tradition of art.

Santhosh Kumar Das is a Mithila artist from Madhubani in Bihar. Das learnt his art from the women in his household, beginning with his mother, and later on his aunts - the great artists Mahasundari Devi and Karpoori Devi. The inspiration for his art has been diverse - from politics, natural disasters and cinema, to music and religion. A Fine Arts graduate, he also ran an art school in his home town. Das has travelled to the the U.S. with his art, and is the recipient of the Ojas Art Award.To create art that celebrates the colour black has been a long term project with him. This project has taken him seven years to complete-the result is a fabulously intricate visual and narrative tribute to the many muses that have shaped his artistic vision. Black is the artist's first project with Tara Books.