We are speaking about her Moon Series presently on show at NGMA Bengaluru the place the Delhi-based artist is exhibiting her works at a present titled Kaal Netra – Sacred Matrices: Seema Kohli’s Living Mythic Universe. The present, with over 200 items created by Seema since 2004, includes all method of media from her multi-disciplinary practise and has been put collectively by Darshan Kumar YU, deputy curator, NGMA Bengaluru.
Seema says her fascination with the moon started in childhood, spurred by her curiosity in tales and her father’s observations of philosophy. “I’m within the narrative and never the parable or non secular or non secular facet alone. That is how people tales come into being — when folks make narratives their very own.”
“I imagine mythology is a means of interpretation. We don’t have phrases, so we create different methods of expression that make it simpler for us to grasp what occurs throughout us,” she says, including that even whereas fairly younger she was in a position to greatest specific herself via photographs on paper.
Talking in regards to the Moon Series, Seema says it depicts the moon’s waxing and waning and 28-day cycle, and is a throwback to one in every of her earlier works. “That piece was an set up. However, once I began working with thread, sequins and different gildings on canvas, I needed to work on this idea as soon as extra, as a result of I felt it calling to me.”
Seema Kohli | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Once and once more
“Much just like the waxing and waning of the moon, there’s a steadiness which comes via the female in someway or the opposite. “The constants stay fixed,” she says, referring to the recurring themes in her work.
“The concept of the female, the golden womb, the concept we’re all interconnected, and that creation is consistently occurring is the overarching theme. The world could be going loopy simply now, however Nature has its personal cycle. It comes again to you, bashes you up and strikes on.”
We transfer on to Storm in a Teacup, an artwork e book of kinds, created out of etched prints. “I take pleasure in printmaking as a result of it’s an all-encompassing course of that pulls my consideration to just one factor. You work on a plate, perform its acid remedy, watch it take form after which, do it over again — creating one other print that’s comparable, however with one other iteration.”
Seema says she has been engaged on not less than one collection of prints yearly, a observe she started round 12 years in the past.
Storm in a Teacup by artist Seema Kohli | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“I’ve at all times needed to create an artist e book and work with etching, one in every of my favorite media,” she says, including that her entry for a good on artist books resulted in, ”an accordion e book, which couldn’t solely stand as an artwork piece, but in addition be held in a single’s fingers and loved,” which is an aberration as etched prints are often framed and mounted.
On show are a few Chinese screens adorned with artwork on either side. Seema says, “All of my work is impressed by my influences or issues that affected me throughout my adolescence.” She goes on so as to add how she was deeply moved when she was about 12 and her father patiently defined the Chipko Movement.
“Even immediately, a treasure trove of reminiscences magically open up once I see bushes; I turned a tree hugger as a baby and it constructed an empathy inside me. As an grownup, you see how bushes are a logo of Nature, with parallels within the scriptures — the Bhagavad Gita, Buddha’s enlightenment was beneath the pipal tree, it’s seen in Sufism and Christianity, too. In most of my work, bushes have an necessary function to play and I’m pushed by the concept of bushes rising on their very own, wild and free.”
Tongue in cheek
Perhaps probably the most eye-catching show on the present is an set up of many-coloured tongues.
From Kaal Netra by artist Seema Kohli | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“For me, the tongue is an area of style, it doesn’t must do with meals alone; even after we are listening to good music or take pleasure in the fantastic thing about a flower, there’s a sense of rasa in our mouth. The tongue is probably the most delicate a part of our physique with out which we can not full the concept of the 5 senses.”
Seema elaborates, “All method of temptations stem from the tongue. We communicate with it, use it to reward or incite motion, it’s used to articulate our imaginations. Every need is predicated on the tongue and I’ve tried to depict it as image of need with this set up.”
She goes on to clarify, “As lengthy as there’s temptation or a need to stay, one will stay. There needs to be one thing that retains you enthusiastic about life. Ambition is a need, as is the want to hand over every little thing. There are many temptations, and there at all times will probably be.”
Kaal Netra by Seema Kohli is presently on show on the National Gallery of Modern Art.
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