Kite art

Paintings that have to survive the wind

Hand-painted kites are engineering as much as art: paper, cloth, bamboo, and pigment balanced so a picture can climb. Bhavna designs, makes, and flies her own work — themes ranging across mythology, ragas, and the animal and bird kingdom.

The Kite Stories collection

Named narrative works — each kite carries an episode of the epics, hand-painted on nylon over bamboo. Open a card to read the story painted on it.

Built to fly, not only to hang

These are working kites — bamboo spars balanced against nylon and paper skins, painted in acrylic and fusion art, with bridles tuned by a flier with three consecutive Gujarat International Kite Festival first prizes (2009–2011). Rokkaku, Japanese, and Indian fighter shapes, up to 52 inches across. She refuses glass-coated manja — for the safety of people, birds, and animals.

A new theme every year

Her collections follow annual themes: aquatic creatures given wings (2008), avatars of Hindu deities such as Narasimha and Vamana (2016), and a spirit-energy series — Kundalini, horse, lion, and phoenix kites (2017). She has also flown kites promoting Ladakh tourism.

Epics over Jakarta

For the 70th anniversary of India–Indonesia friendship in 2018, she created more than 50 Ramayana- and Mahabharata-themed kites, displayed in Jakarta on the occasion of the Prime Minister’s three-nation visit to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore — and appreciated in writing by FICCI’s Gujarat State Council.

Kites in famous hands

Six of her kites hold a permanent place at the World Kite Museum in Korea — commissioned after Korean kitist Byong Ook Cho saw her work at the Delhi Kite Festival in 2014 and a year of family effort followed. Her promotional kites have flown with Salman Khan (“Jai Ho”, 2014) and Amitabh Bachchan (“Shamitabh”, 2015), and carried the police’s 1091 women’s-safety helpline into the sky.

See the recognition these works earned →