An artist paints a wall at the Osakothi workshop at Lalit Kala Akademi in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, March 25: A revered and grand form of ritual art in south Odisha, Osakothi is being showcased at a workshop in Lalit Kala Akademi here.

Three artists from Digapahandi in Ganjam are busy recreating the scene of their villages and numerous neighbouring villages during the season of worship of Goddess Durga.

As tradition goes, the villagers perform the rituals at a hut-like structure, the Osakothi, that was established by villagers years ago for the festival of Durga. It is believed that every year a different villager, who had vowed to play the father of the Goddess if his wish is fulfilled, invites Her as his daughter. She comes in grand procession where the idol is carried to his house along with devotees. But the Goddess does not come alone. She brings with her the entire fraternity of deities and this is where the art comes in.

Other members of the divine family are not present in form of idols, but artistes at the village create colourful images of all the deities from folklore on the walls of the Osakothi. These could be minor tantric deities in their frightening avatar or more prominent mythical characters such as Ram, Hanuman, the Pandavas and so on. Lord Shiv and Parvati are the most highlighted in the paintings. The unique element in these paintings is that they use heavy symbolism and attractive colours.

Here at the Lalit Kala Akademi, a stunning makeshift Osakothi has been set up and canvas has been fixed on the walls where the artists are drawing images of deities.

“The wall art of Osakothi includes deities of various kinds, like the tantric deity who eats children, the one who cuts off animals’ heads and so on. And then there are also more popular deities from the Ramayan and the Mahabharat,” said Raghunath Moharana of Sahaspur.

Arun Kumar Sahoo of Digapahandi had taken it up as a career after graduating from B.K. College of Art and Crafts. “It takes us three days to a week when 10 to 15 artists fill up the huge walls with paintings of mythological characters as well as the scenes of the festival,” said Sahoo.

“This fantastic form of art has a lot of contemporary feel in the depiction of the mythical deities, devotees and the scenes from the festival. But, it has never been exhibited for public and this is the first time we have brought it outside the village,” said Ramhari Jena, secretary of the Lalit Kala Akademi, Bhubaneswar chapter.

Resource person for the event, Dinanath Pathy said: “We have also arranged for the artistes to perform the dance, song as well as trance seen during the festival at the village.”

The workshop was inaugurated in presence of linguist Devi Prasanna Pattanayak and artist Asim Basu on Sunday and it concludes on Thursday.