Untitled I
Description
A deity sits at the centre of the world, cross-legged and entirely at ease. The figure is orange from head to foot, the colour of turmeric and marigold and the particular warmth of festival firelight, and every surface of the body is alive with pattern. Bands of green, blue, red and gold ring the arms and legs in stripes. The torso is a field of embroidered forms, flowers, stars, leaf shapes and geometric borders layered across one another with the generous hand of someone who understands that abundance is itself a form of devotion. Gold necklaces sit at the throat. Earrings fall in drops from each ear. A white tilak marks the brow beneath a pointed green crown. The face holds the widest smile in the room, open, joyful, entirely unguarded, the expression of a being who has nothing to withhold.
In one raised hand the figure holds a staff wound with a black and blue serpent, its head alert at the top. In the other, a small green and yellow vessel, held lightly, like an offering or a secret. Jodhaiya Bai is one of the most celebrated Baiga artists working today, a Padma Shri recipient whose paintings carry the visual memory of a community whose relationship with the forest, the divine and the decorative is ancient and unbroken. Her figures are never portraits and never symbols alone; they are presences, full of personality and ceremonial weight in equal measure. Painted in acrylic on canvas, this work announces itself without apology, a vision of the sacred that is also, unmistakably, a vision of joy.
Why This Artwork Stands Out
The all-over patterning of the figure's clothing and body, rendered in Baiga visual vocabulary, transforms the human form into a living textile of cultural memory. The serpent staff and ritual vessel situate the figure within a specific devotional iconography while keeping the mood festive rather than solemn. The radiant orange ground of the body against the plain white canvas creates an intensity of presence that makes the figure feel genuinely monumental at any scale. Jodhaiya Bai's status as a Padma Shri laureate and living master of the Baiga tradition makes this work both a significant artwork and an important cultural document.