Gondi Tribal Mural Painting Kondagaon Chhattisgarh

Gondi mural painting practiced in villages around Kondagaon and Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh is the traditional Gond tribal community's visual language for communicating with spirits, recording historical events, and honoring deities painted on the clay-plastered walls of homes and community gathering spaces. Distinct from Patangarh Gond painting of Madhya Pradesh (which moved to paper as a market art form), the mural tradition of Chhattisgarh retains its ritual context. Paintings are made using earth pigments — white from lime, red from iron-rich laterite clay, black from lamp soot, and green from plant sources — mixed with gum arabic binder and applied with handmade brushes of bamboo split or animal hair. Themes include the cosmic tree (Khamba Devta — the pillar deity), ancestral clan animals (tortoise, peacock, tiger), river goddess imagery, hunting scenes, and festival ritual sequences. Mural painting is an annual renewal practice for tribal families — the same wall compositions are repainted each year after the monsoon rains wash the previous cycle. Contemporary artists from Kondagaon have brought mural-style Gondi painting to canvas and paper for gallery market, under the Chhattisgarh Tribal Art collective. TRIFED supports artisan cooperatives. The tradition faces pressure as younger community members migrate to urban centers and mud-plastered walls are replaced with cement.