Karuna Chitrakar is a patua (folk artist) of Medinipur, West Bengal, in India. These type of folk artists have for many generations painted scrolls (patas) designed to be unrolled while the story accompanying the pictures is sung. The patas are hand-painted sheets of paper, sewn together. Natural colors, which come from flowers, spices, fruits or just dried mud, are still used to dye the papers, though the sources for some of them are dimishing these days.

Traditionally the scrolls told religious stories, but in recent times the artists have added historical events; ecological disasters, such as storms and floods; and social commentary to their repertoire.

The patua ekes out a meager income by going from village to village and house to house with a bag of scrolls, singing their stories. While most of the patuas are men, there are also quite a few women artists, like Karuna Chitrakar herself.

All images in this gallery are from the book To the Local Bazaar, self-published by Mustard Seeds, 2002.

The book can be purchased online, at Powell's, or directly from Mustard Seeds.