"Having worked with fishing communities along the coast for around four decades, I was delighted to meet Susan Beaulah and see her paintings of the Chakara. She is certainly the first artist I have met who chased it and then devoted energy so consistently to capture the unique and mystical images of this fishing phenomena.
This is a priceless contribution to a documentation of the lives of fisherfolk that are under threat from the other interests that compete for the resources of the ocean."
Ms. Nalini Nakak
(ICSF) www.icsf.net
The Chakara is a peculiar marine phenomenon found only in South Western India and South America. Monsoon waters flow down the mountains gathering clay and silt, the water eventually flowing into the sea where a chemical reaction takes place. A complex 'soup' slows down the waves and currents producing an area of calm seas which are rich, not only in oxygen, but in nutrients that attract an abundance of shrimps and fish.
Attuned by centuries of experience, the fisher families know when and where these will turn up ... and follow the Chakara as it moves along the coast.
Susan Beaulah is the only westerner – let alone a woman – to capture this phenomenon first hand, spending months each year painting the Chakara as it happens.
