Dawn of Time
Mountains of fecund earth, ever-bountiful trees, vast oceans, flowing streams and fragrant atmospheres, the warmth of the sun and healing winds that follow horizons to infinity; Seema Kohli knows them well - these forms and energies that make up our world and universe. She recognises each element as part of her own being, reliving the awareness through constant visual and conceptual acknowledgment in her art.
Her workt seemingly emerges from an open channel that brings past, present and future into a palpable sphere of understanding, retrieving beginnings and projecting continuity of life in its timeless cycles. She consciously synthesises divergences and builds pathways between extremes, offering perceptions of a balanced mindscape. Several decades of multi- disciplinary practise have contributed to Seema's diverse visual vocabulary, in which a succession of organic transformations can be marked. Everything she experiences, views, reads or absorbs in other ways filters down into nuanced interpretations that take varied physical forms. She says, "Through my works I seek to understand the organic and continuously evolving processes of all beings and matter. For over twenty-six years, I have been interested in showing the state of flux of the body and mind using various mediums and materials." Her oeuvre features paintings, drawings and prints, more voluminous objects like sculpture and relief work, as well as peformative acts extended through the body and Self. A deep tolerance towards the Other and acceptance of change is embedded in her philosophy of living, characterised in the themes she chooses to depict.
These themes transcend myopic views of reality and spring from an evolved understanding of ancient knowledge systems and recognition of dimensions beyond the immediate material world.
Underlying several streams of exploration is the artist's core identification with feminine energies within her visual language – whether they are powerful Goddesses in the Indian context, or more universal energies constituting aspects of nature and the cosmos. The earthly and the divine overlap and mingle within the picture planes, as she uses mythology and cultural history as analogies for contemporary dialogue. Myriad graceful beings pervade the spaces with their subtle forces; they are anonymous beings- principally female, but also male and androgynous. They seem dynamic, moving freely across the worlds created by the artist for them to inhabit. These agile forms are often in yogic postures, and sometimes with feathered wings, defying the laws of nature and of gravity. Their inner liberty manifests itself in physical endurance and invests them with power. Who are these nameless, faceless beings? She, who stands strong with her flowing hair, and spreads wings that span the landscape, what is her identity? Is she a goddess, or one of us? Is she the earth, or the sky or the tree that embraces the world? - Or is she the artist, Seema? The beings represent everyone and no one; they are one and many at the same time; they take human form but evoke the essences of nature that merge and flow through their bodies. Seema's work manifests the spirit of feminine energies in the various fundamental and evolved forms, and in the myriad cycles of life. She propounds a belief that life is continuous, infinitely extending into futures that one cannot know; despite strife and conflict, death and devastation, the essential perpetuation of nature does not end. There is always a seed of hope in the birth of new things. Nature, the all nurturing mother, carries forward the Hiranyagarbha. Resonant in the title of this compilation of work,Hiranyagarbha is a concept Seema Kohli became interested in about twenty years ago. On an occasion she had visited the pilgrim centres Haridwar and Rishikesh, where she saw cavities on the sand banks of the river Ganga that happened to be formed over a long period of time as the river changed its course. "They reminded me of a womb, and the quietude and solace that I found while sitting inside one of these cavities was extremely powerful." she explains. In ancient Vedic philosophy, Hiranyagarbha or the Golden Womb is the primordial and eternal womb that nourishes, generates, and revives the cosmic order. All Becoming takes place in this receptacle.