Mystery painting

Mystery Painting (Tamil, mayachitram) is a painting technique developed by Canadian artist Paul Hogan, co-founder and creative director of the Butterfly Peace Garden (BPG) program based in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, which since the early 1990’s has been helping traumatized children from communities torn by civil violence. The programs offered to children at the BPG are conducted by adult animators, who present and supervise various activities associated with visual art, music, storytelling, theatrics (including clowning), dance and play within a context of expression, contemplation and play which promotes healing of individuals and communities. Hogan believes that in order to create such an atmosphere animators must avoid impressing their acquired notions of value, utility and intention upon the spontaneous playfulness and creativity of young children. Towards that end he has been involved in the development of a variety of techniques which help adults adopt a more naive approach to art, and mayachitram is one such technique.

Mayachitram uses simple and readily accessible materials: watered-down acrylic or poster paint, basic brushes and paper, canvas or board laid on the floor or other convenient surface. Operationally, the process can involve a variety of ritual, meditative or social constructs and contexts. Technically, there are three basic stages: 1) Making a template - a random collection of black lines is painted on a white surface without overt intention (some practitioners paint with their eyes closed). The tangle is then tidied by evening out the lines and cleaning rough edges by filling in with black paint and/or trimming with white. 2) Finding a story - the lines in the template are studied from all angles as they are broken, joined, hidden, resurrected, shortened and extended in a playful search for characters and stories amid the tangles. When a story finally appears that cannot be ignored, everything else not needed is whited out. 3) Colouring – the emerging story is brought to life with coloured paint using much the same approach as in a colouring book.

The description presented here concentrates on the most tangible and observable aspects of mayachitram. Discussions of its artistic, meditative and psychological aspects are available elsewhere:

http://www.mangotreegarden.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=17&lang=en (this site also is presented in Nederlands)