Street Artist Hugh Leeman, whose work you may have seen in Lower Manhattan, is currently in India, and he sends this dispatch about some wheat-pasting he’s been doing there: “These pieces I recently put up in Varanasi, India just as Holi festival began. They are on the ghats near the Ganges river.”

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“I was working on these just before sunrise while off in the distance from many different directions. You could hear the chanting of monks and holy men coming from ashrams all while wild monkeys watched me from above and crows cawed as small black birds with brilliant orange specs ate at my excess drips of wheat paste.”

“Further down the river banks bodies are cremated or floated down this holy river.”

“Note the orange splatters on the face – This is from the Holi festival which is celebrated by splashing colored water on each other – and on my wheat paste.”

“The temple here is slowly sinking into the river.”

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