Painting Artist,Prakash Joshi

Phad painting is a folk art style of Rajasthan that extols the virtues of Pabuji, a king of great valour.

The Pabuji-ka-phad tradition combines a painted backdrop by a Phad artist that depicts scenes from Pabuji’s great victories and pursuits, and a small stage for singers and musicians to tell these tales to village audiences as a form of popular and inspirational entertainment.

Prakash Joshi, a Phad artist with a fine brush, was already adept at innovation. His skills have been put to use combining scripted Devanagari phrases with snippets of the Pabuji story in images of forts, horses and portraits of kings and queens. These have been done on paintings as well as on three-dimensional objects. He has illustrated storybooks for children, and can translate any story into pictorial form.