First Warli artist to begin painting on canvas, Jivya Soma Mashe is known for bringing the art form into mainstream national and international art markets by drawing it out of its associated ritual context.

Mashe was born in Dhamangaon, Maharashtra. At the age of seven, his mother passed away, the shock of which impacted his speech. For several years following his mother’s death, Mashe would communicate through drawings in the mud, replicating the visual schema of Warli wall paintings done by women. Traditionally, the art form is mainly practised by women called suvasinis, who paint fertility images on the walls of their mud-houses using rice paste and herbs. When Mashe was eleven years old, the family moved to Kalimbipada (in present-day Palghar, Maharashtra). Later, he worked as a labourer there while continuing to paint as a hobby.

The subjects of Mashe’s work are drawn from daily life in the community, ceremonial and secular celebrations such as harvest festivals and weddings and Warli myths and legends. Mashe also represented his own socio-ethnic observations into his work using modern-day motifs and imagery. As a child, he painted with natural pigments and materials such as reed brushes. Under Kulkarni’s mentorship, Mashe began to work on paper and canvas with poster colours. The visual vocabulary of Warli art is reinterpreted in his work; he uses simplified and minimal forms such as circles, triangles and squares, but his line drawings are stylised and contain symbolic harmony and movement. In his work, Warli iconography is updated with symbols that reflect his surroundings; for instance, bicycles, trains and fishing nets entered scenes of farm work, harvesting, hunting, dances and forests. Mostly executed with white paint over a brown or red background, his stick figures are emblematic of the life and labour of rural Maharashtra.
In 1976, Mashe was awarded the National Award for Tribal Art as part of the drive by Pupul Jayakar to foreground minority cultures. He received the Shilpa Guru in 2002 and the Prince Claus Award in 2009. In 2011, he received the Padma Shri from the Government of India.