Free Spirit

Suhana Medappa is a textile designer who works out of Bangalore. Using a combination of fabric and prints is her specialty. Having graduated from the Srishti school of Art, Design and Technology she realized that experimental screen print was her forte. After a stint with Satya Paul  as a textile designer in Gurgaon she moved back to Bangalore to start her own exploration with screen printing and thus began the journey towards Free Spirit. Free Spirit is the brand of printed clothing and home furnishing designed and printed by The PRINT Journal a company set up by Suhana in 2010.

Free Spirit scarves & stoles available at the MASALA CHAI store , Chennai

Lokesh Karekar : Locopopo

Lokesh Karekar's artistic skills are nothing short of superb. This J.J. Institute of Applied Arts alumnus knows a thing or two about design. One look at his stylized Indic script illustrations or even the rendering on his desi-hip  brand locopopo, is all you need to be convinced of this fact. In a sublime mix of austere line drawings and intensely hued folksy vectors, you see a glimpse of Karekar's visual identity. When quizzed about what inspires him, Lokesh dutifully pays tribute to his city Mumbai , amongst other things. Click here for an interview.

Available soon at the MASALA CHAI store, Chennai

Kalyani Ganapathy : Kye

"In the sultry south Indian state noted for its excellent frothy filter coffee, ‘Kye’ means hand. It’s a rather quirky name, we think. And it’s certainly the shortest word that captures everything we stand for, and everything i do. I, Kalyani am the only designer here at Kye. At Kye i  paint stories, incidents, dreams, sounds, sights, just about anything and make them into objects for use. Though my work comes from no particular school of art, every piece of art is handmade, unique and done by a single hand. That’s why we call it the labour of love! It’s just something i do straight from the heart.", says Kalyani Ganapathy of Kye.

Available soon at the MASALA CHAI store, Chennai 

Inkling Prints

These gorgeous, intricate designs are the handiwork of London based Kiran of Inkling Prints.

She hand carves the patterns on lino and hand prints them on to cushion covers and bags. Kiran started Inkling Prints when she moved to the UK from Singapore. Scour her labours of love at her flickr and her website.

Cheap Thrills

Your daily dose of pulp kitsch. Anyone want to try their hand at translating? Go here if you are easily amused. How emo is that heart bindi?

Kate Banazi

My fav former- Londoner- half- desi from Melbourne , Kate Banazi is back with a series of one off Screen Prints that can only be described as explosive. They're printed on specially made little boxes that I'm actually quite curious to see myself. In the meantime go take a peak here for more from the cleverly titled Neural Housekeeping . And if you are in Melbourne go down and say hello to Kate. And buy her work.

Champa

There are a couple of things that drew me to artist Champa Mohan's pieces , one of them being the neon colours typical to 'street art' (usually political posters) found in India . (It's also interesting to note that the subject of her prints are the characters of the Ramayana.) The other being the patterns she incorporates into her prints , which is a woodcut tradition. The first image has the kolam on it and I'm surprised that contemporary graphic designers have more or less over looked the very cool , complex , symmetrical quality of kolams. Except maybe Tukral & Tagra. Those are some cool artists. Images from here

Flukebooks

Tara publishing is an independent publishing house with their headquarters in my hometown Chennai. They also happen to have the most insanely creative in-house design team that churns out the funniest , most bizarre visual arts & children's books . They also have a line of exquisite handmade books but this post is really about their very cool & truly novel flukebook.

From their website, " The only notebook that is as unique on the outside as whatever you choose to scribble inside, each flukebook is covered with a fusion of eclectic prints and colours, totally original and knock-out gorgeous. Every cover is stamped “Edition 1 of 1” and it’s true - you’ll never find one flukebook exactly like another. They’re impossible to reproduce! Happy scribbling."

You can find them here .

Manjula Padmanabhan

Manjula Padmanabhan is a Delhi based artist, illustrator, cartoonist, playwright and novelist. She has illustrated 21 children's books, and has had a long running cartoon strip, Suki, in the Sunday Observer and later the Pioneers.Images from here. For some reason the etchings seem to have a nostalgic aura about them, yeah?

Anju Dodiya

I'm quite taken by Anju Dodiya's latest mixed media print series titled All Night I Shall Gallop . The prints are dotted with Victorian imagery and Plathian verse that reflect Dodiya's own artistic macabre, although it's the awkward humour that reels me in. The artist lives and works in Mumbai. Images from here.

Milan

Afore mentioned Screen Printing Goddess Kate Banazi's little son Milan has set up shop . Mr.Milan is all of 11 & plans to donate a percentage of his sales to a Charity of his choice. Go buy his very cool prints here.

Kate Banazi

British born Screen printing Goddess Kate Banazi resides in Sydney. She is a little bit of quirky and a whole lot of talent. She has a fashion degree from Central St. Martins where she excelled at Illustration and measuring the inside legs of beautiful male models .
Other interesting trivia :Has made beverages for Jack Nicholson and a pig suit for a Fat Boy Slim video. Clients have included PWC, Graniph, Unilever, Caparo, Slipmode, and numerous private commissions. And Finally , Is right handed, brown eyed, often melancholy(Me too Kate, me too). Visit her Etsy store at once. (via fly)

Chitra Ganesh

Chitra Ganesh was born and raised in New York City, and currently lives in Brooklyn.These images are from Amnesia's Travels, a comic book that creates an alternate mythology to explore how memories and their repression shape personal and social crises. The project is inspired by Hindu mythology, present day imperialism and queer politics, and erased moments in South Asian history. I suppose the lack of reconciliation between what is drawn and what is written makes it funny in a bizzare way.

R.Bala

I'm not quite so sure why all the art journals and magazines aren't writing about this artist already. R.Balasubramanian , a Printmaker & artist , lives & works out of Chennai. His art comes armed with various philosophies that he explores almost as a continium , rather than seperate concepts. There is glorious method to this madness, he uses science & art to explore his spiritual leanings in what manifests as detailed and highly complex Paintings, Prints & Installations. What is amazing about this man is that his skills are Old school , his concepts are Contemporary & the execution is very Avant Garde. He's so many things at once, but it works for him.He's like a retro-futuristic Raza.

I urge you to visit his website, it has a substantial volume of his work which I suspect is only the tip of the iceberg.

Kunwarji Dileep Sharma

This artist from Rajastan has an M.F.A in Print Making from the J.J.School of Art, Mumbai. His latests works titled, Crazy Stills is a collection of prints and watercolour works that are humourous naratives of his psuedonym Kunwarji's adventures. His paintings are an inevitable mix of urban pop & ethnic mythology. His technique in water colours is reminiscent of miniature painting & Kerela's mural paintings. I actually find his work very entertaining. This last one of Hanuman cracks me up. No prizes for guessing that there are already several Hindu fundamentalists groups on his case (literally)