Dr. Vasundhara (Vasu) Tolia
Michigan
Dr. Vasu Tolia is a Michigan-based physician-artist, speaker and author creating vibrant mixed media works on healing, identity, resilience, and cultural memory
Message
The painting depicts a vibrantly colored basket overflowing with skulls, inspired by a Teotihuacan vendor basket on my visit there. The use of such a contrasting image, with a basket, typically used to hold mundane items, filled with human skulls, creates a tension between the ordinary and the macabre. The basket itself is rendered in earthy tones of brown and gold, which creates a sense of solidity and stability. By contrast, the skulls are painted in a riot of colors, including red, blue, yellow, and green. The skulls themselves vary in size and shape, with different expressions - grin or silent agony, its presence on the Avenue of the Dead suggests many different ways in which people experienced death there centuries back. Overall, the painting is a thought-provoking work of art which forces the viewer to confront the mortality .
These is a sister painting to this also. I took this photograph while visiting Teotihucan near Mexico City . The street vendor’s basket was filled with these colorful masks as if the souls of the sacrificed workers had come back from the dead. That history was the inspiration for these 2 artworks.
- Subject Matter: Miscellaneous
- Collections: Miscellaneous
