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Dancing the Line was national award-winning Pattachitra artist Bijay Parida’s first solo exhibition in Mumbai. Artisans’ gallery at 52–56 VB Gandhi Marg, Kala Ghoda, presented the show in April 2017, with the exhibition reported to run through April 8. The programme paired paintings with Pattachitra and palm-leaf etching workshops and an Odissi performance.
The exhibition and its setting
Artisans’ in Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda district hosted Dancing the Line, Parida’s first solo show in the city. The presentation introduced Mumbai audiences to Odisha Pattachitra through works on cloth and silk, while the accompanying events demonstrated how the tradition’s drawn line relates to movement in Odissi dance.
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The exhibition is historical: it ended in April 2017. Any current Artisans’ exhibition, class, schedule or fee needs to be verified directly rather than inferred from the 2017 programme.
Who was Bijay Parida?
Contemporary coverage described Parida as a national award-winning artist. Mid-Day attributed two National Awards to him. Scroll.in reported that he began his career in 1978 at age 20 and was 59 during the exhibition. He trained at the Orissa Handicraft Training and Design Centre and later studied under Pattachitra practitioner Gokul Bihari Pattnaik.
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Parida placed individual expression inside a shared discipline: “All pattachitra artists follow a similar technique, a similar method of drawing and decoration. But like no two people’s handwriting is the same, each artist is able to achieve difference by imbuing the painting with his own style.” He also described the essential demand of the craft simply: “Pattachitra requires patience.”
What Odisha Pattachitra means
Odisha Pattachitra is a narrative painting tradition associated with prepared textile and palm-leaf surfaces. Its compositions use controlled contour, ornamental borders and densely organised figures to tell sacred, literary and everyday stories. Reports on related Odisha mural traditions have placed their roots as far back as the 2nd century BCE; that historical estimate concerns the broader tradition, not Parida’s 2017 exhibition.
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At Dancing the Line, the term “line” was literal—the defining contour of the image—and conceptual, linking the painted gesture to the trajectories of Odissi dance. The works showed how a highly codified visual language can remain recognisably traditional while allowing an artist’s own hand and contemporary choices to appear.
How Parida made the paintings
- Prepare the support. The works were made on tussar silk or cotton cloth, surfaces associated with textile Pattachitra. Palm leaf belongs to a related but distinct format used for incised drawings and etchings.
- Draw the design. Parida outlined motifs with a metal stylus known as a lokoni. The stylus establishes the precise linear framework before colour and ornament are built up.
- Make the pigments. Reported materials included conch shell for white, crude cinnabar (hingula) for red, geru stone for an earthy red and lamp soot for black. These mineral and organic sources produce a palette tied to the material culture of the tradition.
- Paint and decorate. Colour is applied within the drawn forms, followed by patterned details and embellished backgrounds. Parida said he had referred to older, more minimal palm-leaf Odisha Pattachitra and then “embellished the backdrops,” explaining the richer settings visible in his adaptations.
- Complete the composition. Borders, repeated ornament and finishing lines unify the narrative field. Hindustan Times reported that Parida could make a series of six paintings in three days; that is a period report of his production rate, not a general timetable for every Pattachitra work.
Stories and motifs in Dancing the Line
| Subject | What it contributes |
|---|---|
| Gita Govinda | Poetic episodes associated with Krishna, devotion and lyrical movement. |
| Jagannatha imagery | A central devotional visual vocabulary of Odisha. |
| Ramayana and Mahabharata | Epic episodes presented through compact, highly legible narrative scenes. |
| Krishna-Leela | Stories of Krishna’s play and relationships, rendered through gesture and ornament. |
| Shada ritu (six seasons) | Seasonal cycles and the changing relationship between people, landscape and time. |
| Chausathi Kala | The traditional catalogue of 64 arts, offering a subject rooted in learning, craft and performance. |
| Nabhagunjara | A nine-animal mythical composite, recognisable for its fantastical hybrid form. |
Parida also adapted familiar religious imagery for viewers beyond a strictly devotional context. Scroll.in reported one scene in which he substituted non-religious figures for the conventional Radha–Krishna pairing while retaining the visual idea of adornment. The change shows how the grammar of Pattachitra can be redirected without abandoning its characteristic line and decoration.
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Why dance was part of the programme
The gallery programme included an Odissi performance designed to explain the relationship between lines in space and lines on a painted surface. In that setting, “dancing the line” described more than a title: it was a way of seeing contour, pose and rhythm as related forms of movement.
Hands-on sessions extended that idea. Listings from the 2017 programme described a Krishna-Leela Pattachitra workshop and a palm-leaf etching workshop. They offered different engagements: painting works with colour on a prepared support versus incising a design into palm leaf.
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Choosing a way to experience Pattachitra in Mumbai
| Option | Surface or focus | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| View an original work | Tussar silk or cotton; finished natural-pigment painting | Studying line, borders, colour and narrative composition. |
| Take a Pattachitra workshop | Textile painting, often using a guided motif | Learning the sequence of outlining, colouring and ornament. |
| Try palm-leaf etching | Palm leaf; incised rather than primarily painted marks | Understanding the related linear technique and its material constraints. |
| Use a reference book or class | Reproductions, demonstrations and historical context | Comparing motifs and methods before purchasing or making work. |
Because the Kala Ghoda workshops belonged to a 2017 event, treat archived listings as historical documentation. For a current class in Mumbai, ask the organiser for the instructor’s name, the surface and pigments used, whether the exercise is Pattachitra or a simplified derivative, and whether the session includes palm-leaf etching.
How to assess an authentic or well-documented work
- Named maker: The artist or workshop should be identified, not described only as “traditional.”
- Technique: Look for a clear account of the support, outlining method and pigments. A description mentioning tussar or cotton, a metal stylus and natural mineral or organic colours is more informative than a generic claim of “hand-painted.”
- Subject and context: The seller or gallery should identify motifs such as Jagannatha, Krishna-Leela, the epics, shada ritu, Chausathi Kala or Nabhagunjara when those subjects are present.
- Provenance: A gallery record, exhibition history or workshop documentation helps distinguish a specific artist’s work from an unattributed decorative reproduction.
- Material honesty: Ask whether colours are natural pigments or modern synthetics. Either can be a legitimate contemporary choice, but they should not be represented as the same process.
What Dancing the Line established
Parida’s Mumbai debut showed Pattachitra as both a disciplined inherited method and a living artistic language. The exhibition’s subjects reached from Jagannatha and the epics to seasons, the 64 arts and a mythic hybrid beast; its workshops and Odissi performance made the relationship between material, line and movement tangible. For anyone seeking the show today, its lasting value is as a documented 2017 encounter with Parida’s practice—not as a current exhibition listing.
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