Sarah Praill

Egg box paintings thinking a lot about the villagers of Nanpur going through lockdown. They had to navigate a cyclone during all this too. There an egg is a rarity. You have to go to several villages to gather enough eggs for me to eat in a week! They prefer to keep them to make a hen. 

I was in India in January 2020 teaching in Nanpur, a rural village in Odisha. I visited the Natural history section of the Calcutta Indian Museum on the way home. There are many stuffed animals that have been there so long they are all dark, dusty, brown black. The lions and the hippos all with no fur standing there quietly and patiently. The writing comes from an inscription in the British Museum where I used to draw every Friday. I saw Ashurbanipals library last year and was moved by his spells and omens inscribed on ceramic fragments.