🇬🇧 Introduction

Welcome to my blog, a documentation of my discoveries of Indian art

Hello everyone, and welcome!

My name is Melissa Amalir, and while on my gap year before attending art school, I will be exploring the world of Indian art and documenting everything I learn in this blog.

Although mostly based in Delhi and Calcutta, I hope to be travelling around India, meeting with artists, designers and craftspeople who will teach me the principles behind each art form I encounter, from pandals to sculpture to printmaking.

With each new art form, I will be trying to find a way to reinterpret Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland, a story that I loved as a child. My environment having changed from a quiet coastal village to the huge colourful city of Calcutta when I was seven, I always related to the character of Alice, and the journey of a little girl in a strange new world.

The book remains a huge source of inspiration, and I am fascinated by the many interpretations illustrators have had of it, and I would love to be part of that tradition. I am excited to see where what I learn will take these much loved characters.

Below are some illustrations I have already done; so we will see how, by the end of this year, my vision will have changed!

I am hopeful that this year dedicated to learning crafts and traditional art forms will allow me to bring knowledge and insight of Indian art to my practice. These art forms are struggling to survive, and I would love to do what little I can to bring attention to them by sharing what I learn in this blog and incorporating their techniques in my own work.

Thank you for reading and I hope you will join me as I embark on this adventure!