The series of prints titled 'From the North' was inspired by Picasso's 'Vollard Suite' (1934) and 'Minotaurmachy' (ca. 1947). With these series of prints Picasso was reinventing himself through his creation of a personal set of cultural metaphors, which provided more than just a series of images but were based on notions of transformation, where for example, the bull becomes human. This artistic creation has the capability itself to stand as something 'real'. Mistry was also inspired by a wide range of other sources - Islamic, Corinthian, Egyptian, Indian, Assyrian, mythological and religious, all of which are equally apparent in the hybrid creatures we see in his work.

In ‘From the North’ Mistry depicts the mythological creatures called Reguarding Guardians. They draw their inspiration, primarily, from the Vedas, a religious treatise of Aryan origin which contains the sacrificial hymns to their gods whom they regarded as Guardians of the natural world. The main deities were Indra, the thunder god; Agni, the fire god; Varuna, the god of the sky and regulator of the universe, and Suma, the god of creation and the life-giving fluid drunk by all the deities.

All the Guardians have human heads and animals bodies which are winged. This series is also inspired by ancient Assyrian art, which Mistry was able to study at the British Museum. The Assyrians decorated their palace entrances with monumental guardians of the gateway in the form of enormous winged bulls with human faces. In this series we find the Guardians depicted with the bull's attributes: human heads with have horns. This image is derived from the Minotaur legend of ancient Crete and Picasso's modern recreation of the myth in the Vollard suite (1956).

In this print the artist has depicted the Guardian of War and Death. This figure is responsible for rain and fire. For this reason, the artist has inscribed these symbols on each of the Guardian's wings. The cannonball underneath the Guardian's hand symbolizes the beast's control over war and death. The Guardian's human hand, by contrast, rests on a book that could symbolize 'knowledge'. In India, the Guardian of Death is associated with the figure of the bull since traditionally the god of death rides this particular animal. Therefore the human head of the beast, symbolizes the duality of man's nature who has the potential to become a beast or a human. To his left, we see a standing female muse symbolizing the continuation and creation of life. In the background the artist has depicted a small man with boat at sea.

Dhruva Mistry was born in Kanjari, (Gujarat) in 1957. He studied sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda (1974-79), graduating with distinction and a gold medal. He went on to gain an MA at Baroda (1979-81) and then came to Britain on a British Council scholarship to take an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1981-83). Mistry has since gained international recognition and many prizes. He was elected Royal Academician in 1991 and was the first Indian sculptor to be made Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1993. In 1997 he returned to Vadadora and in 1997 was appointed Professor, Head of Sculpture and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Baroda. He was awarded an honorary CBE in 2001.

Mistry's work ranges from huge public commissions to maquettes and wall reliefs, related in part to Hinduism and Buddhism, but also encompassing influences from the West - Egyptian and Cycladic art and European traditions of figurative sculpture.