Bhootada 002_By Moebius

Bhoothada is a small inconspicuous clay totem that the tribe of the artist's origin, the Dhodias, believed to be a protector of spirits of those who are gone from this earth. After experiencing a personal loss, he first came upon this figurine in rural Gujarat and the form evoked in me a sense of antiquity and yet a kind of timelessness. Not much about this particular motif is available online or in literature, which then inspired him to explore the form visually through a series of personal artworks. He started to develop his own myths around the artworks, adding in motifs and embellishments, and this particular artwork was one of them.

It represents a raw, primal connection to earth, fire, and sky. It’s a rejection of the sterile, the sanitized, the worship of a singular god in a box. Instead, it’s the wild dance of rituals forgotten by time, where the sun and moon still speak and the earth hums beneath your feet. It’s chaos, it’s freedom, it’s power in the places where the spirits of old still whisper and burn.