Swarna Chitrakar

Swarna Chitrakar inherited the Bengal patachitra scroll painting tradition from her father. She developed mastery in this art form – not only in creating beautifully painted scrolls, but also in composing accompanying songs to narrate stories associated with those scrolls.

Swarna’s paintings depict a wide array of themes – stories and tales from Hindu mythology, and modern social issues such as, female infanticide, trafficking of girls and issues on women empowerment. She has even depicted incidents such as the Tsunami of 2011 and the 9/11 Twin Towers attack and composed narative songs to go along with those scrolls. A Bengal patachitra scroll painting is probably the earliest form of cinema, incorporating visuals and sound.

Swarna uses natural organic colors on diverse mediums such as paper, canvas, fabric, clay and ceramic.

Swarna has exhibited her artwork at major international art festivals and events, and has two books to her credit – ‘Monkey Photo’ (with Gita Wolf) and ‘The Patua Pinocchio’ (with Carlo Collodi), both published by Tara Books.