Seema Kohli's Artistic Journey Explored in Delhi Exhibitions

“Art, to me, is akin to my life. It is not separated as ‘work’. In every moment, it is a conversation, an internal journey or a solitary path animated by a living confluence of spiritual and intellectual traditions. I am inspired by mystic poetry from Bhakti and Sufi saints such as Kabir, Bulleh Shah, Baba Farid and Lal Ded (all voices that celebrate the body as altar and the soul as journey), by the philosophies of Tantra, Samkhya and Yoga, and especially by Shakti-centred systems like Kashmir Shaivism and the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra. Each of these traditions deeply informs my sense of ritual, embodiment and energy flow in creation. I have been raised in a traditional Adwaita household, where Vedanta was a way of life. But I was lucky, for I was introduced to many faiths and philosophies, including Sikhism, Buddhism and Sufism. I studied Western philosophical thought during college, where I was exposed to thinkers such as Descartes, Hume, Jung and Plato. They, too, informed my exploration of consciousness, perception and mythic identity. Together, all these threads — poetry, Tantra, philosophy — intertwine in my visual language, shaping how I gesture with colour, form and ritualistic process.”

“A lot of my work naturally leans towards the transformational energies of the feminine. What really attracts me to the concerned subject matter is the effortless and unconditional collaborations. In fact, it is the vast, deviating variant of the energy forms of the feminine that I am constantly exploring through my practice… Through a critical reading of ancient metaphysical texts such as the Garbha Upanishad, I became conscious of the inconsistencies and ambivalence delineating the gendered ascriptions in these accounts. For instance, the term hiranyagarbha is extended as an appellation to Surya or Brahma, both traditionally gendered as male. This, together with concepts such as the Ardhanarishwar, the vast assembly of ambiguous beings in the extensive Hindu pantheon such as yakshas and yakshinis, my kamadhenu as well as the numerous narratives in Indian mythology involving, transgenders and transvestites, kings that become pregnant or spend their time in exile impersonating eunuchs, and gods who dress up as gopis (rural milkmaids) to gain access to a dance, or ones whose gender fluctuates with the lunar circuit, contributed to my understanding of gender as a spectrum.”