It is common in various societies around the globe to bestow a stole as a form of honor. Each culture has a unique objective for presenting a wrapped textile on a particular occasion. In specific ethnic communities in Nagaland, the Feast of Marriage is celebrated, and it is customary to gift a particular shawl to the bride or groom. The designs featured in each shawl carry a symbolic significance, representing the qualities necessary for an individual to thrive in society, such as power, integrity, and social status, among other positive and beneficial aspects of people’s lives. Florence Lohu, a self-taught artist from Kohima, Nagaland, reproduced the designs and symbols of the Naga traditional fabric on her canvas, resulting in a unique style and composition that is compatible with modern artistic expression.

Naga artist Florence Lohu after completing her Master’s degree in Sociology from Ambedkar University Delhi decided to follow her dreams. She started with pencil sketching in 2018, and evolved to become a water colour painter, in between acrylic and oil paints. The Artist believes that her style is “always evolving” and the inspiration comes from people in daily life and mundane things around. Her work is mostly based on painting traditional costumes worn by people of Northeast India. The young Mao artist developed certain motifs from various Naga traditions creates an array on her canvas. She calls this genre FloArt.

‘Escape to the Blue Sea’ is a 30×40 cms large original expressionist seascape painting of a blue sea with a boat in the middle of it. The colours are blues, lilacs and pinks and the scene shows a small boat sailing amidst the blue sea, as a wave breaks on the beach from the calm sea. My aim in painting this was to limit my usually very bright colour palette to just a few colours as I wanted the scene to be relaxing and contemplative. The sky above is extremely dramatic symbolizing as though the calm may end soon. I think the sea speaks to all of us and I often paint seascapes in order to have bit of a reminder of that holiday feeling you get when looking out over an ocean. It is painted on deep edge canvas, white edges, ready to hang, no frame needed.

Akangsha Chakraborty
An artist based in Delhi and I paint large original landscape and seascape paintings in oil on canvas. In her words…
“My painting style is a fusion of Expressionist, Semi-abstract, a little Art Nouveau and whatever mood I am in that day. I am inspired by the patterns of nature and the energy, colours and spaces of the landscapes and animals around me. I like to think that paintings have ‘little souls’ woven into them by artist’s and that these are what call to a viewer (or not as the case may be) and give a painting presence and desirability. My aim is to make art that offers a glimpse of spaces and possibilities where people can escape the manic pace of life and imagine themselves somewhere better – even if just for a little while.”

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Naphisabiang Khongwir, an young Artist from Shillong studied BFA from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, prsently studying Masters of Visual Arts in Creative Painting from M. S. University of Baroda. She is a part of several notable Art exhibitions like YUVA SUMBHAVA of the Raza Foundation (2022). She was an artist in residency for Lawei: A Home for Art,
About the present work she says “The form in back ink can be seen as both representing the Shillong Hill (Lum Shillong) and the traditional thatched roof, seen in the few remaining structures like the King’s house (iing-syiem). The composition doesn’t have a supporting base and apparently does’nt need one as it is in the sky.
The red ‘tapmoh’ (shawl) being a signifier of the title. ”.

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Phaibhakupar Kharlukhi, the Artist from Shillong loves to depict man and his natural surrounding. The oil in canvas painting tells us that here is a hard working man who has to carry wood even after his days work. The wood he is carrying is less heavy that’s means he was doing other work too. He is going back home with firewood for his dinner to be cooked . And it’s the evening golden hour those beautiful ray are falling in him. Its like it’s giving him satisfaction and gratitude
‘Rays of Gratification ‘ is what the painting is trying to convey

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Benedict Skhemlang Hynñiewta is a Lecturer in the Centre for Cultural and Creative Studies, North Eastern Hill University pursuing PhD in the Folklore Department. He is also a versatile flautist performing in various prestigious international music arena. He has been the member of Lalit Kala Akademi and the North East Zonal Cultural Centre and associated with the local musical band ‘Na la Rympei’.

Benedict has a new series of paintings entitled ‘Destiny’, which comprise of visual representation of sound in the square blocks that reflect the melody of his musical composition embedded in each and every block of the artwork. His consistent involvement in visual arts and music has brought about this new dimension of aesthetic expressions.

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Born in Japan as a grand daughter of a Buddhist monk she studied art in New York, built a family in Brazil, and living in India since 2012. Her cross-culture background spanning three remarkable different cultures (Japan/Brazil/India) has given her a unique set of conceptual tools to connect and give meaning to the environment around her. Continuously drawing from her knowledge of and belief in Indian and Japanese spiritual mythology, her multi-disciplinary practice is a delightful chaotic mix of visual, sculptural, conceptual, performative, spiritual and musical expression. Her sensibilities as a visual artist are strong and poetic, however her real strength is her performance work.

Reiko Shimizu

Tears in April are the sudden snow out of season and falling petals of cherry blossoms
Transformed into the countless stars and melted away beyond the milky way
Innumerous waves of heavenly Gangaa
Carried away my friend in silence
Embraced in the mantle of white darkness
Gently dissolved away…Far beyond the eternity

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‘Escape to the Blue Sea’ is a 30×40 cms large original expressionist seascape painting of a blue sea with a boat in the middle of it. The colours are blues, lilacs and pinks and the scene shows a small boat sailing amidst the blue sea, as a wave breaks on the beach from the calm sea. My aim in painting this was to limit my usually very bright colour palette to just a few colours as I wanted the scene to be relaxing and contemplative. The sky above is extremely dramatic symbolizing as though the calm may end soon. I think the sea speaks to all of us and I often paint seascapes in order to have bit of a reminder of that holiday feeling you get when looking out over an ocean. It is painted on deep edge canvas, white edges, ready to hang, no frame needed.

Akangsha Chakraborty
An artist based in Delhi and I paint large original landscape and seascape paintings in oil on canvas. In her words…
“My painting style is a fusion of Expressionist, Semi-abstract, a little Art Nouveau and whatever mood I am in that day. I am inspired by the patterns of nature and the energy, colours and spaces of the landscapes and animals around me. I like to think that paintings have ‘little souls’ woven into them by artist’s and that these are what call to a viewer (or not as the case may be) and give a painting presence and desirability. My aim is to make art that offers a glimpse of spaces and possibilities where people can escape the manic pace of life and imagine themselves somewhere better – even if just for a little while.”

The Flight Within
When the night was talking to me
telling me the stories of stars and breeze
I flew across the bright moon
as many long-winged stories
sliding surely through the unknown paths
opening up the secrets of the clouds and waters
penetrating deep inside the earth
sitting underneath the red lamp
filling it with the yellow light

Seema Kohli

Seema Kohli
Born in 1960, Seema Kohli has created her own niche in the world of contemporary art since past 35 years. Seema Kohli has had over 30 solo show in Venice, Brussels, Melbourne, London, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and alike. Her work can be seen as public art as murals of 10’ x100’ at the T3 Delhi International Airport, Mumbai International/Domestic Airport, the Defence Ministry, Tata Residency, Manipal University, ONGC, Tata Center of Excellence, Park Hyatt, Chennai, Lila Hotel-Delhi, Bangalore and many more

She says. “When I paint, you see not what I have made but what you want to see.” “I,” Seema Kohli, painter and teller of stories, “am both myth and reality. Pick the one you want, but remember, the mirror distorts, and so the myth might be reality, and reality myth.”

The present one is an item from her Hiranyagarbha Koham(golden womb) series. The Artist obliged ‘Ka Jingshai- The Light’ by letting it publish this painting, the concept of which seemed to be similar in connotation with the Khasi legend of creation.

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Dream offering (far left) by Benedict S Hynñiewta is the manifestation of the mother as the custodian of an inclusive matrilineal family and her fecundity for the sustenance of mankind. Sigmund Freud puts it “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind”. The Khasi folk archery is the pastime for social amusement, even as the serious involvement of the archer in his bid against the intruder as narrated through the tale of lamentation about ‘U Sier Lapalang’ reflected through the artwork by Skhemlang Hynñiewta ‘On Target’ (above). Although in the contemporary situation a dream in the urban folklore would predict the number for betting in the game of archery for fortune hunters. Fortune and destiny is something that an angler never dreamt of, but Harata caught a fish of fortune that became the Royal Mermaid (left), the ancestral mother of the Sutnga royal clan emerged through another artwork by Skhemlang Hynñiewta. Riti Academy hosted a colloquium on Dream, Folklore and Art for folklorists, cultural exponents, scholars of humanities, shamans, artists and any mindful practitioners of transcendental folk knowledge, with more deliberations in the offering.