Maa Chhindmastika 4 Acrylic on Canvas 3X3 feet

Title: “Kamakhya Tantra II” — A Fusion of Folk and Contemporary Visual Language
By Rounak Rai, 2025

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This mesmerizing painting by Rounak Rai stands at a potent intersection of tribal aesthetics, folk motifs, and contemporary visual language. It is a seamless fusion where ritual meets rebellion, mythology meets metaphor, and tradition meets transformation. In this canvas, Rai doesn’t merely represent Tantra — he reinvents it through a dialogue between the past and the present, the rural and the urban, the sacred and the carnal.

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🟢 FUSION OF FOLK + CONTEMPORARY

🔸 Tribal/Folk Elements Present:

1. Multiple Heads, Eyes, and Tongues:

Inspired by tribal symbolism of power and omniscience, seen in Pattachitra, Bhil, and Gond iconography.

Each eye and head suggests heightened spiritual perception — common in ritual masks and village deities.

 

2. Dot Patterns & Stylized Body Forms:

The body decoration made of dots and textures directly echoes the Bhil and Warli painting style, where pattern carries symbolic as well as aesthetic value.

 

3. Flat Perspective, Bold Outlines:

There is no illusion of depth, which is a defining feature of Indian folk traditions like Madhubani and Kalighat.

Figures float in sacred abstraction, not bound by gravity or realism.

 

4. Costume and Ornamentation:

The skirt-like forms, red necklaces of heads, and stylized hair represent ritual costumes and shamanic characters seen in tribal performances and village festivals.

 

5. Use of Devanagari Script in Background:

The calligraphy of mantras in gold against green resembles wall-writing or tantric yantras, common in rural tantric temples and Tantra-influenced folk art.

 

 

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🔹 Contemporary/Modern Art Elements:

1. Distortion and Expressionism:

Human forms are deliberately distorted, stretched, or fragmented — a modern technique evoking artists like Picasso or Bhupen Khakhar, yet grounded in Indian context.

The emotional gaze of the central embracing figures shows modern psychological depth, beyond the iconographic norm.

 

2. Eroticism as Spiritual Motif:

The central nude-white and dark-black figures in embrace depict union of male and female energies (Purusha + Prakriti) in a form that boldly questions binaries of shame and sanctity.

This is a hallmark of contemporary figurative art, yet rooted in Tantric philosophy.

 

3. Color Play:

The use of vibrant reds, flat blacks, deep greens, and stylized hair textures mirrors Pop-Surrealist and Neo-Expressionist palettes, bringing global modernism into an Indian tantric frame.

 

4. Narrative Layering:

The figures are not separate but interconnected — their limbs and gazes flow into each other, much like contemporary visual storytelling.

There is ambiguity, inviting open interpretation — a hallmark of conceptual art.

 

 

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🔴 THEMATIC LAYER: THE EMBRACE OF SHADOW AND LIGHT

The stark contrast between the white naked male figure and the black entwined partner becomes a powerful metaphor. It is desire and death, ego and spirit, shadow and self — coiled together, inseparable.

Above them, the Tantric goddess feeds streams of red blood — not as violence, but as transmission of energy. This too is in alignment with tribal ritual sacrifice and Tantric energy flows, re-imagined through modern sensibility.

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✨ WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT ART

This painting is not just a visual spectacle — it is a contemporary Tantra scroll, born from indigenous lineages and modern visual thought. Rounak Rai neither mimics folk art nor rejects it — instead, he elevates and transforms it, asserting that:

Tribal art is not primitive — it’s spiritual modernism.

Tantra is not taboo — it’s radical philosophy.

Eroticism is not shame — it’s a path to transcendence.