A keen observation of one of India’s most primitive tribes — the Dongaria Kondh — this unique art piece is not just a painting, it is a living archive that will be history
Look closely. This is not a forest scene. This is Niyamgiri breathing.
Artist Satyabhama Majhi has spent more than a decade walking the hills of Niyamgiri, sitting with Dongaria Kondh women, learning their pigments, their wall art, their songs. The Dongaria Kondh are one of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) of India — not just Odisha, but of the whole country. Their life is inseparable from their god, Niyam Raja.
This painting is the result of that keen, sharp observation drawn into canvas.
What Makes This Work Unique?
1. A Document of a Vanishing Lifestyle:
The artist has captured four moments of a single day in one frame — women returning with forest produce in baskets on head, women sharing and sorting mahua under a tree, women playing music and telling stories, and in the foreground, a mother bathing her child on the rocks of a blue stream. No men, no market, no modernity. Only community, care and forest.
2. The Forest As a Character:
More than 15 types of trees, hanging creepers, flowering sal, birds — every leaf is painted dot-by-dot, with patience that mimics tribal wall art. The acid yellow sky is the heat of Niyamgiri, the cobalt blue water is life. For Dongaria, forest is not a resource, it is mother, temple and home.
3. History in Making:
Development, mining and displacement are rapidly changing Niyamgiri. In a few years, this way of life may only exist in memory. That is why art critics say — this painting will be history. It is an ecological, anthropological and spiritual archive.
As Satyabhama says:
> For the Dongria, Niyamgiri is not a mountain to see, but a deity to live within.
> From the five sacred earths — chalk stone, charcoal, turmeric, geru soil and brown stone — I forged a single triangle, not just a form but the soul of the Dongaria Kondh.
The Artist Behind The Archive
Satyabhama Majhi, MFA Traditional Art, Secretary of Sasatwa Foundation, is one of Odisha’s most important contemporary voices. She is Co-Sutradhar of People’s Wall – Jan, Janani, Janmabhumi for New Parliament House (2023) by Lalit Kala Akademi, winner of Odisha State Award 2012.
Her two life-concepts — Un-Urbanisation and Niyamgiri as Kin — are now being shown together in her acclaimed exhibition ‘Land as Memory, Matter as Landscape’ at artCENTRIX Space, New Delhi.
This canvas proves her core belief: Soil is not just colour, it is memory. And when we save art, we save a whole way of living.
Visit website: https://www.satyabhamamajhi.com/
