{"id":82589,"date":"2013-01-24T17:56:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T12:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=82589"},"modified":"2013-01-24T17:56:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T12:26:02","slug":"the-goddess-of-all-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-goddess-of-all-things\/","title":{"rendered":"The Goddess of all things"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Divine intervention<\/strong> Shakti,<\/em> a painting by Seema Kohli, from the exhibition Parikrama<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAT THE<\/strong> canvas\u2019 centre is the goddess. All life emanates from her. The colours are vibrant yellow, red and green. The detailing is intricate, with smaller female figures dancing, praying and painting in abandon, around her. This is Shakti<\/em>, a painting from Seema Kohli\u2019s upcoming exhibition Parikrama,<\/em> to be shown at the India Art Fair, 31 January to 3 February 2013.
\nSeema Kohli, 52, is a Delhi-based artist famous for her depiction of female strength, sexuality and divinity. Winner of the 2008 Lalit Kala Akademi National Award for Women, Parikrama<\/em> is in continuation with these recurring themes. It is her interpretation of the Saptmatrikas, the seven divine mothers, the manifestation of feminine energy that created the universe. Kohli uses paintings, sculptures, a video installation and a film \u2014 It Was a Summer Afternoon<\/em>\u2014 to talk about the abuse of nature, womanhood and humanity.
\n\u201cThe goddess and the demons embody us,\u201d says Kohli, who spent 10 years training at the Triveni Kala Sangam, \u201cDivinity has to come from within us to fight our demons. We are responsible for disconnecting ourselves from nature and leaving behind our tribal space. We see the violation of the environment and women as a personal right.\u201d
\nIn It Was a Summer Afternoon<\/em>, the abused young girl wonders, \u201cDoes she feel the same? \u2026 Am I as divine as her?\u201d She addresses nature, which has been raped like her. The film is less about the act, more about the shame in the aftermath. Kohli confesses that it took years to gather the courage to film it. Her turning point, she says, came in 2002, when she left her home and no longer found herself answerable to the family name or bound to traditional familial roles.
\nWriter Charty Dugdale, who wrote the concept note for Parikrama<\/em>, feels that this is Kohli\u2019s most direct engagement with rape culture. Her paintings and sculptures are more \u201coblique\u201d; they use mythology to talk about social realities. However, her evocation of myths from Vedic, Sikh and other cultures attracts viewers. They are hooked by a familiar symbol and fixated by the new story it tells. Kohli makes mythology her own. For example, she sees Maya as the divine feminine. Maya becomes not just the illusion but also the creator of the illusion that gives birth to the universe. \u201cThere is no religious iconography,\u201d says Kishore Singh, a prominent art critic. \u201cInstead there is freedom, creativity, a personal spirituality and a certain heroism in how every woman can be a goddess.\u201d
\n\u201cKohli\u2019s art might not be quite fashionable in terms of trends dictated by contemporary art. She isn\u2019t the highest selling artist. But her works move fast through the market, with a 2×2 ft canvas going for Rs 2.5 lakh and a large canvas for Rs 6 lakh. She has ready buyers,\u201d explains critic Rahul Bhattacharya. Popular Prakashan<\/em> publisher Harsh Bhatkal, a long time collector of \u00a0Kohli\u2019s works, attributes that to the joy stemming from her art. People relate to it more than they would to highly abstract works, he says.
\nKohli\u2019s work is not about anger and hostility. Neither is it an overtly political, aggressive feminism. Her goddess is a serene and joyful embodiment of the role of the nurturer and life giver.
\nParikrama will be exhibited at the India Art Fair, 31 January to 3 February 2013, New Delhi<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seema Kohli\u2019s new exhibition uses accessible mythological symbols to comment on contemporary realities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":82602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[7051,5933,7541,7542,7543,7544,7152,7545,7546],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}