Tamil Geometry

I am partial to the geometric unadorned motifs of Tamil Nadu and had a few ideas for my tiny canvases based on these designs/motifs. Further I wanted to restrict the palette to white, brick red and ochre. In part this is because these colours as well as abstract geometric designs are integral to much aboriginal art in Australia and I like to think about the links between the two.

The first one is inspired by temple walls in the state. I wish I could have got some of the faded nature of these walls but it was a bit difficult with the paints I had and my painting skills are fairly rudimentary.

The second is inspired by Saivite caste marks in the state.

The third is of course inspired by the ubiquitous kolams of Tamil Nadu. My intial idea was to reproduce three kolams for the three canvases I had which I subsequently abandoned. The colour scheme here is an inverse of most kolams where the main design would be made with white rice paste, the border would be formed by "kaavi" (red brick paste) and the base would be mud or black slate. I decided to go with the white background but am still undecided on which colour scheme might have been the best.

The lines are not very symmetrical partly because I wanted to retain some of the rough nature of the designs (though that is also an excuse for my poor skills - kolams of course tend to be beautifully precise more often than not).