thiruvananthapuram the epic vadakkan paattukal ballads of the north has been immortalised time and again through popular film adaptations perhaps it is a first for anyone to conceptualise these oral traditions into elaborate acrylic paintings the women artist duo thara sudhish 54 and saritha suresh 49 have attempted to explore a road less travelled by creating a series of 16 paintings based on the ballads of north kerala titled oru vadakkan varavarnagadha they recently held an expo at the museum auditoriumthe process of recreating this significant part of kerala folklore took nearly two and a half years of researchbased work the inspiration was the success of their first collaboration along similar lines in 2020 the first mythologybased art series we worked on together was the tale of attukal bhagavathy said thara the primary challenge of basing art on mythology is the lack of adequate information to rely on we referred to the ballads which are a mix of sanskrit and malayalam and also sought the help of senior scholars here we have portrayed the stories of main characters from two families thacholi manikkoth and puthooram veedu like thacholi othenan unniarcha and aromal chekava said saritha