Balu Ladkya Dumada
Warli People
Born 1967, Ganjad, Maharashtra
Lives and works in Ganjad

Rajesh Chaitya Vangad
Warli People
Born 1975, Ganjad, Maharashtra
Lives and works in Ganjad

The Warli are an indigenous people who originate from the rural Thane District in Maharashtra, India. Warli painting has its roots in traditions extending as far back as 2500 BCE. Originally painted by women using rice paste and a bamboo stick on the red mud and cowdung walls of their dwellings, it was used to record auspicious and ceremonial occasions. It is said that the Warlis do not have a written language, and their art served as a form of documentation. Balu Ladkya Dumada was the first student of Jivya Soma Mashe, a pioneering artist who gained widespread recognition from the late 1980s. Dumada's depictions of Warli stories and daily life are executed with rich detail and dramatic scale. Rajesh Chaitya Vangad is a third-generation Warli painter and has expanded the ancient Warli pictorial language through a wide range of subjects.