Japanese artist Yusuke Asai decorated the walls and ceiling of this classroom with a sprawling, intricate mural painted with mud. Sweeping curves, patterns, and shapes form abstract depictions of people, plants, and animals in this magnificent painting. For those lucky enough to see it in person, Asai's work makes for a completely immersive experience, as viewers can gaze in every direction to find playful details and intricacies of the abstract universe that Asai has created.
Asai painted this stunning work of art in the Niranjana School as a part of the Wall Art Festival held in Sujata Village, a small village in the poor Bihar state of Northeast India. Along with other Japanese and local artists, Asai used the walls of the school as his canvas in order to raise awareness of how the children and villagers of Bihar live.
The artists' other goal was to bring art into the lives of the schoolchildren, who are isolated from cultural centers like New Delhi. Asai used local dirt, dust, ash, and straw to produce his wall paintings as a way to appreciate the earth and land that local farmers' depend upon for their livelihoods. After exhibiting the mud paintings, Asai worked with the children to wipe away his work, returning the material to the soil and teaching the students the meaning of life as a cycle.
Yusuke Asai Website
Yusuke Asai on Aratani Urano Gallery Website
via [Spoon & Tamago], [Wochi Kochi Magazine]
