In the Year, 1987….. in a small village called BALANGA
in Puri District, Mr. Biranchi Narayana Behera was born in a poor family.
Due to the family conditions, he was forced to leave his
studies after Class 10. With no other options for livelihood, he has chosen
Odisha’s Traditional Art form – Palm Leaf Engraving as his career path.
Since then, he was deeply involved in this Traditional Art
and traveled across various parts of India, attended numerous exhibitions just to promote our rich culture.
As rightly said by Abdul Kalam that “Confidence with hard
work is the best medicine to kill the disease called failure”, Mr. Behera is
the perfect example of this. Due to his dedication and contribution to this
traditional art, he won the Prestigious Lalit Kala Academy award in the year
2015.
After that, he has started his own school of Palm leaf Art
determined to keep the tradition alive and transfer this art to the upcoming
generation. Today, he merely gets Rs.10,000 from the state government which is
not sufficient for him to maintain his own livelihood and his school. This World-Class Artist innocently
says "ଆଜ୍ଞା, ପଇସା ଆମର ବେଶି ଦରକାର ନାହିଁ… ବାସ ଆମେ ଆମ କଳାକୁ
ନେଇ ଆଜି ଯାଏ ବଞ୍ଚି ଆସିଛୁ..ଆଗକୁ ବି ବଞ୍ଚିବୁ.. ବାସ ଆମକୁ ଟିକେ Support ଦରକାର.” (We don’t need much money.. We just
want this traditional art form to get support and encouragement as they
deserve).
(Pic Source: Mr. Behera with his Students)
Like him, there are many other artists of Odisha are not
getting proper support and encouragement. Though there are a lot of plans and
schemes made by the State Government for the upliftment of the art, it’s been not
successfully implemented on the ground level.
(Pic Source - Few mastery work by Mr. Behera; the first in the above row won him the Lalit Kala Academy award)
Please give your support to this rarest art form – Palm Leaf
Painting and Engraving and spread the word to every corner of the world so that
the artists like Mr. Biranchi Narayana Behera, get that they deserve the best.
(Pic Source: The tools used for etching on the Palm Leaf sheet made by the dry palm leaves sewed back to back)
We at Ritikart, aggressively promote this art on our online
store – https://www.ritikart.com and
make it reach to whole world.
Direct Product link: a) Palm Leaf Painting – https://goo.gl/6RRtRR
b) Palm Leaf Engraving - https://goo.gl/7j6Ccj
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you can.
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