From serving a meal on a banana leaf, making garlands using the banana fibre to cooking vadais with the banana flower, the banana plant plays a significant role in lives of south Indians. The print project 'vaalai thoppu' is an effort to capture the essence of the banana plantations, 

From the budding shoots, swirls of banana leaves grow,
the shades of green you witness as the leaves emerge and grow,
tea green to forest green,

there is beauty even when these majestic leaves break, tatter and flap with the wind, and even after they turn old, yellow, pale and brown. 
And between the dense foliage are some magnificent flowers hanging bearing fruits, the structure so splendid how the fruits grow within the layers of the flower petals. 

​

Using watercolors as a medium to explore the textures of the plant, I've developed print designs suitable for digital printing with straight and brick repeats. The layouts represent different phases of the plant and plantations including the deep view through plantations, the parts of the banana flower, the phases of a banana leaf.