Walk through the "Wall Hangings" section on UmedMart and you'll bump into three completely different art traditions sitting side by side — a white stick-figure painting on a mud-brown background, a riot of tiny colourful dots forming a peacock, and a round mud relief studded with little mirrors. All three get called "wall hanging" or "wall art" in casual conversation, but they're not variations of the same craft. They come from different parts of India, use different techniques, and mean different things. Here's how to tell them apart before you pick one for your wall.
Warli: the white-on-earth tribal painting from Maharashtra's own Thane belt
Warli painting is named after the Warli tribal community native to the Thane, Palghar, and neighbouring parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Traditionally, it was painted directly onto the mud walls of homes using a paste of rice flour and water, applied with a bamboo stick, over a base of red ochre or cow-dung plaster — which is why the classic Warli palette is just white figures on an earthy brown or maroon ground. The subject matter is village life itself: farming, the tarpa dance, trees, animals, and simple triangular human figures built from two triangles joined at the point.
On UmedMart, the Warli pieces come from Bharari CMRC, a women's SHG based in Thane — the same district this art form calls home. Their range includes a basic unframed Warli Painting at ₹799, a more affordable Rectangle Warli Wall Art at ₹612, and a Framed, Mounted Warli Painting at ₹1,635 for a more finished, ready-to-hang look.
Gond art: the dense, colourful dot-and-line work
Gond art comes from the Gond communities spread across central India — Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and the Gondwana belt that runs into Maharashtra's own Gondia and Gadchiroli districts. Unlike Warli's minimal white outlines, Gond art is built from thousands of small dots and fine lines packed tightly together to fill in bold, saturated colours — deep reds, yellows, blues, greens — usually depicting animals, trees, and nature spirits in a style that reads as intricate and busy rather than sparse.
UmedMart's Gond pieces are made by Shilpi Sakhi, a women's SHG in Gondia district. Worth a look: the Peacock & Tree Tribal Wall Art (₹699), a Framed Gond Art Painting with a nature-and-figures composition (also ₹699), and the larger Sacred Cow and Tree Design at ₹931.
Lippan: mud-and-mirror relief work, not a painting at all
Lippan is the odd one out on this list because it isn't painted — it's sculpted. The technique originated with artisan communities in Kutch, Gujarat, who built raised clay-and-dung relief patterns on walls and then pressed small pieces of mirror into the wet mud before it dried, so the finished piece catches and scatters light. Motifs tend to be geometric and floral — circles, petals, borders — often finished off with round or square frames rather than the rectangular canvas look of a painting.
UmedMart's Lippan range comes from Sujata Creations, part of the Rani Laxmi Bai SHG in Satara, and it's the widest of the three in terms of themes. There are purely decorative pieces like the Green Red Circle Lippan Art (₹661), devotional ones such as the Jay Jagannath Lippan Art (₹997), and even a protective Evil Eye Lippan Art (₹1,199) meant for entrances.
Side by side
If you're choosing purely on look and use-case, here's the short version. Warli suits someone who wants a clean, minimal, conversation-starting piece — it reads as "traditional Indian art" instantly, even to guests who've never heard the word Warli. Gond art suits a wall that can take colour and detail — it works well as a standalone statement piece since it's busy enough to not need company. Lippan suits pooja corners, entrances, and gifting occasions, because so much of the range on UmedMart leans devotional or auspicious (Swastik, Evil Eye, Krishna, Shri Ram) rather than purely decorative — and the round mirrored form genuinely looks different from a rectangular painting, so it doesn't compete with other framed art on the same wall.
All three are lightweight, ready to hang, and best kept away from direct moisture and harsh sunlight — a dry cloth for dusting is all the maintenance any of them need, since none of these are washable surfaces.
Whichever style catches your eye, all of it — along with wooden wall décor, macrame, and other handcrafted pieces from Maharashtra's SHGs — sits together in the Wall Hangings collection on UmedMart.
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