Artist Profile: Padmaja Madhu

I think by now, all of you know my love for wall art. Today, I bring you another form of wall art, at the far end of the spectrum than the one featured on SHP earlier. As modern as Meera's work is, as traditional is Padmaja's.

Padmaja paints murals of Indian gods and goddesses (many on the walls of her home-she is somebody I would love to make a house call to ;) ).  She declares the most fun part of  her painting murals as, "doing the balancing act on a ladder, with paints in one hand and the brush in the other". Her love for murals clearly comes through in her work.

The Garuda has been done in water colour, inspired by a very small panel in a temple in Karnataka. And she has only used 3 colours in the entire painting!

The versatility of Padmaja's talent is apparent by the fact that she also paints lovely miniatures. Imagine going from painting on a 4ft by 6ft campus to painting miniatures!

I love the colours she has used for her miniatures

Her Thiruppavai series. I'm ashamed to admit that after having spent a quarter of my life in Madras(Yes! I still insist on calling it that) and being married to a tamilian to boot; I still didn't know what Thiruppavai was! For all of you as ignorant or as curious as me, here is the wiki link.

You can check out more of Padmaja's paintings at her blog aptly titled 'The World is a Rainbow'. Have a great weekend! I'm off to Boston to get some girl time with my cousin. See you on Monday with another Artist Profile!