Curator: Anu Jindal

A group exhibition of artworks by ten artists from around the world working in different genre and media on the universal theme of mother and the associated sentiments.

Artworks by
NILS-UDO                Landscape Art (Germany)
HIMMAT SHAH                Sculpture (India)
RAMESHWAR BROOTA         Visual Art (India)
HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP        Soundscape (Canada)
KAVAS KAPADIA            Painting (India)
CHANG HOON WOO            Painting (South Korea)
RAMAKRISHNA VEDALA        Painting (India)
PRABIR PURKAYASTHA        Photography/Digital Art (India)
NAOYUKI  ISHIGA            Kiri-e or Paper-cutting (Japan)
ANU JINDAL                Visual Art (India)

On 4th January 2021 at 5 pm, there will be a virtual opening with a webinar discussion on: The Act of Creation

Online exhibition on view from 4th to 17th January 2021 

Curatorial Note

Adversity encourages innovation; pain draws out hitherto untapped emotions. Humanity today is in the stranglehold of the Covid-19 pandemic. Physically forced into insular lives, virtual connections have intensified. Thus struck, creativity continues unabated donning new avatars. This exhibition’s theme of mother and associated sentiments, sprung from the loss of my mother a year ago. Artworks of ten artists from around the globe are in varied genre and media.

Nils-Udo’s site specific installations celebrate nature by “drawing with flowers, painting with clouds, writing with water”. In urban spaces or deep womb of forests, he conjures up a wishful habitat, unblemished by humans. Himmat Shah, follows his maxim “do or die” in a fiery, unquenched quest. Wondrous as a child’s birth, creations originate from humble clay – his ultimate material. Rameshwar Broota’s magna canvases hide and reveal mysteries of life. In recent experiments with glass and resin, interplay of altering light conveys musings on birth, growth, the cycle of life. Hildegard Westerkamp’s soundscape compositions weave a magical world – a stimulating sound-sensorial experience.

Chang-Hoon Woo’s profound paintings delve into the tech-driven tableau of contemporary living. Kavas Kapadia’s delightful cameos of everyday life, rendered in water colours, display spontaneity and refreshing candour. Ramakrishna Vedala’s poetic portrayal of his mother draws out the spirituality and gentleness of her essence through moist, pigment soaked brushstrokes. Prabir Purkyastha’s visions are phantasmagorical journeys to a utopia, which surprisingly is very much our own planet. Naoyuki Ishiga translates his fascination with nature into highly intricate, gossamer, lace-like kiri-e or paper-cuts.  Yours truly’s expression has leapfrogged by being orphaned, emerging anew to explore the matrix of the metaphysical. 

Also viewable at
https://urmilafoundation10.wixsite.com/urmilaartexhibition

ANU JINDAL PROFILE
Anu Jindal, Artist, Art Historian & Educationist, holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the National Museum Institute, New Delhi. As a Japan Foundation Fellow she studied at Doshisha University, Kyoto. 

Since the 1980s Jindal has held many solo shows and participated in several important exhibitions in India and abroad including at the National Gallery of Modern Art and the National Exhibitions at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, Festival of India in USA, Berlin Biennial and Tama Art University, Japan. Her work finds place in Art collections in India and abroad.

Jindal combines artistic practice with academia and teaching, each discipline enriching the other. Teaching has spanned two decades, primarily at the National Institute of Fashion Technology and the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi. Scholarly work on Visual Art & Design has been presented at International Conferences and in published papers. She has delivered lectures at India International Centre, University of Delhi, the National Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art, and New Delhi and at many organizations. For a year she was Visiting Research Professor at the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan.
 
NILS-UDO

NILS-UDO has travelled all over the globe in his mission of creating Land Artworks, constructed with natural materials, a symphony in harmony with nature. He photographs his site specific Installations and withdraws with no harm, disturbance or damage to the natural ecology. Back in his studio he paints on his favourite subject of natural environment. An oft repeated theme drawing attention to humanity’s origin is that of the Nest and dwellings.
His fantastic oeuvre over the last half century consists of several hundred works of Environmental Art in various locations, from his country Germany to far off locations like the Red Rock Canyon in California or an island in the Baltic Sea, in the course traversing several continents. In many cases he fashions his installations by planting vegetation, e.g. “Planting of 1000 daffodils on a floating island” in Rügen, Baltic Sea, “My May Meadow” -planting with poplar, shrubbery, ask poles and clematis, in Upper Bavaria. “La Couveé’ featured in this show was made in the forest at Île de Porquerolle, France. His materials are primarily drawn from those indigenous to the sites like earth, pampas grass, local flowers, reeds and bamboo, volcanic rock.

Numerous publications, replete with photographs of his artworks have been published; Major art institutions, galleries and cultural bodies have sponsored and exhibited his work. Whether urban spaces or the deep womb of forests NILS-UDO’s visual language communicates to all humanity, to simply rejoice in the purity and ephemeral beauty of Mother Nature and leave it unhurt, unblemished. Read more about his extraordinary journey on nils-udo.com

NILS-UDO  LA COUVÉE
MARBLE, EARTH, FOREST
FONDATION CARMIGNAC, ÎLE DE PORQUEROLLES 2018
PIGMENT PRINT 138 X 180 CM ED. 8

 
HIMMAT SHAH

Himmat Shah was born in Lothal, Gujarat in 1933. He studied at the J J School of Art in Mumbai. From 1956 to 1960, in Baroda, he learnt avidly from N.S. Bendre and K.G. Subramanyan whose quest for language and appraisal of folk art stimulated him. Shah was a member of Group 1890, a short-lived artists' collective founded by J. Swaminathan. The then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, opened the group's first and only show in 1963. On the recommendation of the poet diplomat Octavio Paz, Shah received a French Government scholarship in 1967 to study etching at Atelier 17 under SW Hayter and Krishna Reddy in Paris.

On his return, from 1967 to 1971, Shah designed monumental murals at Ahmedabad; and later relief sculpture series called silver paintings and sculptures in terracotta and bronze. Shifting to Delhi, to a studio at Garhi, he experimented with clays and slips to develop a unique vocabulary in terracotta. In 2004 – 2005, Shah worked on bronze sculptures, cast at a foundry in London. Even today, Himmat Shah continues to push boundaries in sculpture and drawing, working from his studio in Jaipur, established in 2000.
www.himmatshah.com. Himmat Shah UNTITLED terracotta & gold leaf

 
RAMESHWAR BROOTA

Born in 1941 in Delhi, Rameshwar Broota graduated in Fine Arts from the Delhi College of Art. Since 1967 till present, Broota has served as Head of Department at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. Broota has perfected his own unique technique, layering paints and then meticulously scraping away the upper layers, to literally unearth his luminous images.

Broota has received multiple prestigious awards including 3 National Awards by Lalit Kala Akademi and ‘Kala Vibhushan’ by All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi. His works are housed in leading collections in India and abroad including the National Gallery of Modern Art, Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, the Josip Broz Tito Museum in Yugoslavia and the Künst Museum in Dusseldorf. His works are part of various private collections in India, USA, Germany, Switzerland, UK, France, Mexico, Sweden and Dubai. www.brootarameshwar.com  Rameshwar Broota UNTITLED-4 Pen and ink and objects in epox resin, 10in x 10in x 5 in
   
HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP

Hildegard Westerkamp’s pioneering musical works and writing, at the intersections of environmentalism, acoustic communication, radio arts, listening practices and soundwalking, activate an awareness that sound is a decisive dimension of the world, an idea that underpins contemporary thinking across social, political, artistic and scientific practices of environmental respect and concern. Initially she worked with R. Murray Schafer and the World Soundscape Project. She is a founding and board member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and was long-time editor of its journal Soundscape.
She has conducted soundscape workshops, given concerts and lectures, and led Soundwalks locally and internationally. Her compositions draw attention to the act of listening itself, to the inner, hidden spaces of the environments we inhabit and to details both familiar and foreign in the soundscape. Excerpts of her compositions appear in Gus van Sants’ films “Elephant and Last Days” and more recently in soundtrack of Nettie Wild’s film “Koneline, Our Land Beautiful”. In 2017 Hildegard’s ways of composing and listening were presented on CBC IDEAS: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-opening-our-ears-can-open-our-minds-h…;  www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca

DB BOYKO (female solo voice in the composition featured here “Moments of Laughter”)
One of Canada’s most adventuresome vocalists, DB Boyko has explored the boundaries of vocal music as a performer and a creative collaborator. Her vocal tour-de-force with singer Christine Duncan, on projects Idiollala, Hubbub and the Canadian tour of “Stall” set in public washrooms invite whimsy and serious listening. For 24 years DB also championed experimental practice in her role as Director/Curator of Western Front New Music, realizing innovative music productions in Vancouver. DB is currently working on  Ayelet Rose Gottlieb's 13 Lunar Meditations: Summoning the Witches.  Sound Compositions by Hildegard Westerkamp

MOMENTS OF LAUGHTER  (female solo voice by DB Boyko)

MOTHER VOICE TALK
 

KAVAS KAPADIA

Kavas Kapadia completed degrees in Architecture in 1969, and Planning in 1971, from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. He was faculty at his alma mater and served as Head of the Department of Urban Planning for three decades, retiring as Dean of Studies.

Kapadia has served on numerous juries, advisory and key committees such as Council of Architecture, Indian Institute of Town Planners, Delhi Urban Arts Commission, Delhi Urban Heritage Foundation, Planning and Architectural education in India and International Architecture and Urban Design competitions. He has presented papers in many international forums including at Hawaii, University of Kyoto, Tokyo (World Water Forum), Jogjakarta (UNDP) and Singapore (EAROPH). Has worked on projects in Delhi, Nigeria, Iran and Singapore. Volunteer member of the PARZOR foundation (initiated by UNESCO for documentation of heritage of Parsees-Zoroastrians). Projected interests of PARZOR in tangible heritage, at Kyoto and Salisbury. Worked on “The Everlasting Flame” exhibition held at IGNCA 2016. Since last couple of years has been polishing his sketching skills. Kavas Kapadia INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY & HUMAN RELATIONS water colour on 200gm paper, size A3

  
CHANG HOON WOO

Chang Hoon Woo graduated in Fine Art from Chung-Ang University, South Korea. Over the last four decades he has been painting prolifically, mainly in oils, making large canvases replete with vibrant colours and intricate detailing, creating conceptually intense, complex spaces, highlighting in particular the high-tech aspects of modern living. He has held as many as twenty-two Solo Exhibitions of his paintings and has participated in numerous Art Exhibitions and Art Fairs around the world. Some of these include the Karlsruhe Art Fair, Koln Art Fair in Germany, the Scope Miami Art Fair, USA, Hong Kong Contemporary, Europ' Art Fair, Geneva, Switzerland, and The Sydney International Art Fair (Australia). Some of the participations in his own country include AHAF-Asia Top Gallery Hotel Art Fair, West-in Chosun hotel, Seoul, The Doors Art Fair, Imperial Hotel. Seoul, Seoul Open Art Fair, COEX. Seoul, and Korea International Art Fair, COEX. Seoul.

Receiving his first award in 1978, the “Special Prize” at The 1st Chung-Ang Art Exhibition, he went on to receive several more honours, including the Gold Prize in 1985 and 1992 by the Korean Association of Figurative Art, and the prestigious ‘Best Artist of Korea’ Prize by the Society of Critics. In 2019, at the ‘Affordable Art Fair’ held in Singapore, in front of a live audience he carried out the ‘Official Performance Live Painting’.Chang Hoon Woo SUPERHUMAN oil on canvas 145 x 112 cm

RAMAKRISHNA VEDALA

Artist and Art Historian Ramakrishna Vedala did his graduation in Painting, and has a post graduate degree in Art History from the National Museum Institute, New Delhi. He has researched on Matisse's influence on Indian art under a grant from the Nehru Trust for Indian Collections. Vedala’s creative oeuvre ranges from fantasy to realism expressed through the medium of Oil and Water Colour painting. Presently he is Secretary Incharge of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. Ramakrishna Vedala MY MOTHER water colour, size A3
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PRABIR PURKAYASTHA

After a long & successful stint in journalism & advertising Prabir shifted professional gears and began his career in photography. For the past two decades he has been extensively photographing in India & abroad. 

He was awarded the Habitat Award for Best Photography Exhibition for 2002. His Inter-Globe calendar for 2003 was presented a gold at the SAPPI Asian Awards for Printing. In April, 2005, he published his picture book, ‘Ladakh’, which won the prestigious Gold, at the federation of Master Printers Awards Ceremony in Mumbai, and was voted ‘Book of the month’, by Better Photography (UK) in July 2006. 

In 2005 & 2006 Prabir presented talk shows, on his wall murals of Ladakh, at the Rubin Museum of Arts, New York. Purkayastha was nominated for the international Prix Pictet 2009 Award and selected as one of the Super Six Photographers for 2009 by Fuji Film, India. During the past few years, he has held critically acclaimed solo exhibitions in New York, Chicago, London, Katonah, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.  www.prabirpurkayastha.comPrabir Purkayastha CREATION#2 digital image
 
 
NAOYUKI  ISHIGA

Japanese artist and designer Naoyuki Ishiga works in the technique of kirie or paper-cutting. He works principally with paper, but also applies his technique to a variety of materials like glass and metal whereby he meticulously etches out his designs on these materials.

Drawing on nature for his inspiration and the sights and experiences that have remained with him since his childhood, he translates his perceptions into highly intricate and delicate paper cuts, which display the fineness of delicate lace. Further combination of the play of light, imparts a radiance and enhances the gossamer quality of Ishiga’s compositions.Ishiga has held several exhibitions in Japan and Europe, held workshops, appeared on TV shows and has received awards for his work displayed at exhibitions in Lisbon and London. Recently his artworks have been used to adorn the interior of the Heijo Palace in Nara, Japan.Naoyuki Ishiga BIRD AND FLOWERS kiri-e or paper-cutting, size A3
  

ANU JINDAL

Anu Jindal HYMN TO THE SUN 150 x 135 cm, Acrylic on canvas

Anu Jindal HYMN OF CREATION 150 x 160 cm, Acrylic on canvas

Anu Jindal ASHWAT VRIKSHA 167 x 135 cm, Acrylic on canvas

Anu Jindal HYMN TO MOTHER 3 minutes 19  seconds, Video

Becky Sharp (USA) | (84 min; 1936; English)
Directors: Rouben Mamoulian, Lowell Sherman

Recipient of the Award for Best Colour Film, Venice Film Festival 1935; and Winner of the National Film Registry, National Film Preservation Board, USA 2019 .So much has been made of the fact that this was the first feature to be shot in three-strip Technicolor that it's often forgotten just how marvellous a film it actually is. A sophisticated, witty, and beautifully economical adaptation of Thackeray's Vanity Fair as it charts its cunning heroine's meteoric rise in society, it rightly and explicitly treats her entirely amoral manipulation of sympathetic women and besotted men as an on-going performance of immense versatility. 

Remembering Bimal Roy (India) | (55 min; 2007; English and with subtitles)
Director: Joy Bimal Roy

Few directors have left such an indelible mark on Indian cinema as Bimal Roy. Joy Bimal Roy who lost his father at the age of 11 years, remembers very little of his father as Bimal Roy obsessed with his work was hardly ever home. The film is a search for his father and a record of the indelible memories of some of the actors and colleagues whose lives the iconic filmmaker touched and changed forever. 

Jantar Mantar, Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh’s Observatory in Delhi (40 min)
An illustrated lecture by Anisha Shekhar Mukherji, conservation architect and author

The talk features some of the most photogenic – and probably the least understood – pieces of architecture that comprise the heritage of our world. It presents the reasons behind the creation and location of these enigmatic built structures, and puts into context their cultural and scientific value. Drawing on research and field studies undertaken since 1999 as part of the Jantar Mantar Redevelopment Project, the talk also discusses what should be the appropriate conservation philosophy for the Jantar Mantars, specifically for the Delhi Jantar Mantar
      

Vilasini Natyam
By Purvadhanshree from Bangalore, disciple of Smt Swapnasundari

Followed by
Hindustani Vocal
By Madhumita Chattopadhyay from Kolkata, disciple of the late Vidushi Purnima Chaudhury and Vidushi Manju Sundaram

Screening of NHK documentary films on Japan’s history, literature, art, culture and heritage. Organised with the support of NHK World and Embassy of Japan, New Delhi 

Geiko Satsuki, Beauty through the Seasons | (50 min; 2020; English and with subtitles)The film follows a year in the life of Satsuki, an exceptional geisha who has been the leading geisha for the last 7 consecutive years in Gion Kobu. Gion Kobu the largest geisha district in Kyoto with a history going back over 400 years has over 60 teahouses in a narrow alley of one square kilometre.  Satsuki has emerged as a geisha of the new age. The film explores Omotenashi, Japanese hospitality, and traditional geisha games such as Konpirafunefune and Tosenkyo.     

The journey of Seema Kohli in printmaking

An exhibition of etchings, serigraphs, and screen printing

Seema Kohli Profile

The online exhibition is on view from 21st December 2020 to 3rd January 2021

For a resourceful artist such as Seema Kohli, working in a single medium could never satiate such a generous and restless creative spirit.  In addition to dazzlingly detailed large-scaled paintings for which she is so well known, the legacy of her long career has been one of broad exploration and experimentation in both traditional and avant-garde mediums - diverse printmaking processes though performance and video. Seema’s work is inspired by and firmly grounded in her extensive knowledge of Indian spirituality, mythology and cosmology which is most often filtered through the lens of the sacred feminine.  An overarching theme in her work has been the regeneration of life which can be seen in extensive and evolving series, Golden Womb and Tree of Life. Her informed and intuitive knowledge of India’s detailed taxonomies of mythological, historical and living spirituality is distilled through diverse bodies of work which offer unique pathways through different processes and forms. 

For a painter with such a refined and meticulous control of her medium, printmaking has provided an opportunity for experimentation, chance and accident. As images emerge through multiple states there can be a keen sense of mystery and unpredictability.  In some processes such as intaglio, the reversal of an image from plate to paper can be revelatory, akin to seeing a familiar image from a startling new vantage point.   

While intaglio printmaking might seem to be the antipathy of the lush color palette characteristic of Seema’s paintings, it privileges a quality of line that underlies all of her work and is particularly reminiscent of earlier primarily linear work. Orchestrating a complex array of visual information through line and tone alone requires a strong command of value relationships grounded by shrewd composition and design. Two very different bodies of work illustrate this superbly. The series Unending Dance of Light share dense compositions and rich tonality. In Power Games, which unfolds at a panoramic scale of 20 x 40”, a woman in a yogic position rests one foot on the back of a small nude male in a vulnerable position facing away from her. The braid of her hair travels down her torso to her upturned foot, tracing the flow of energy in chakras of the subtle body. One arm reaches towards a small prone female figure floating amidst clouds who reaches back to her.  Between these dual points of feminine energy lie what appear to be the physical or mental detritus of urban life - tanks, plumbing, spigots, spotlights and the quotidian concrete boxes typifying cityscapes that these two enlightened women appear to be liberated from.  Similar in proportion and scale, a female figure in Wizard of Oz rests on an inverted tree of life as a lotus twines upward from her navel. Perhaps she inhabits Vishnu Narayana’s cyclical recreation of the world in an inversion of male and female power and energy. Two female figures rest side-by-side behind her with a sliver of moon betwixt. To their right, a series of blocky forms give way to what look to be signs of beach detritus such as striped umbrellas and jazzy star-shaped sunglasses. In this work, depicting water through the use of a murky value rather than color lends an ominous presence. Perhaps the image reflects the degraded condition of the once paradisiacal but now overdeveloped beaches in Goa where Seema has a second home. Riding the Mind and Come Play with Me are dense compositions of action and reaction where the heroic goddesses Durga battles the demon Mahishasura with her team of Saptamatrikas.  They brandish swords and soar and dive through the air in a charged energy field of converging patterns of line and tone symbolizing the elements. 

Her series Memoirs, created in 2018, is strikingly different in tone and temperament.  Rendered in a fine and sometimes fragile black etched line, the ample white of the page infuses the images with a sense of light. Their panoramic proportions allow both lyrical and haunting scenes to unfold.  In one, a three-headed Brahma and his daughter Saraswati encounter a gathering of women flying through the air or sitting in a circle, their long hair either flowing or braided. This female camaraderie of lively gestures, conversation and meditation feels like a utopia that is both comfortingly ordinary as well as transcendent.  As with many of Seema’s works, abstract and representational forms exist in formal and conceptual synchrony. Most curious in this work, a black ovoid mass filled with small white biomorphic shapes enters the composition diagonally, meant to symbolize the life-giving placenta.  It recalls images from tantric art that communicate complex concepts through radically elemental abstraction. At the bottom of the page small bursts of flames erupt, each carrying an embryo. They are shielded by the sheltering wings of the Phoenix, or perhaps one of many hybrid bird-deities from Hindu mythology. This fluidity of forms and symbols reflect Seema’s interest in the multiplicity of meaning found in diverse world religions and mythologies. 

In two other images in the series, compositional shifts between large and small figures and contrasting tonalities of black and brown elicit a sense of shifting realities and time, or of narrator and narration. In one, a self-possessed Kali figure - which may be a self-portrait – confidently holds aloft the damaru drum symbolizing endless time, an attribute normally associated with Shiva. In her other hand rests a circular form resembling both an hourglass as well as the Hiranyagharba, the golden womb of creation in Hindu mythology, an overarching theme in Seema’s oeuvre. Waves of energy flow from her in the form of pathways that others stride upon. On the right of the page, from a low angle of view is a magnified portrait of her showing concentrated internal energy and focus. A subsequent image in this series depicts a bespectacled woman, who could be young or old, standing in front of a vine covered window. To her left, the strident-carrying dancing Shiva appears as either a vision, a dream or perhaps a talisman to help propel the transference of power and agency from male to female. 

Building on the panoramic scale of some of Seema’s intaglio prints is the exquisite penultimate zinc plate etching, Mahavira – The Enlightened One, unfolding at a spectacular 50 x 120”.  Created in warm brown ink, a selective use of gold can be seen in silhouetted figures of the Mahavira and Buddha. Floating among these sacred and familiar icons are reclining floating figures nearly camouflaged in a hypnotic density of wave-like patterns, shapes and bubbles. One figure carries the moon in her hand while another slumbers beneath, perhaps an alter-ego in the process of reabsorption into the atmosphere and elements. Closely modulated tones lend this image a velvety enveloping richness, while the variation and repetition of shape transmits a hypnotic sense of rhythm. 

Two other series feature dozens of intimately scaled images.  At just 4 x 4,” a series also titled Memoirs is a curious blend of iconography encompassing the common, magical and divine that spark surreal links and associations. A jacket embroidered with hearts, fancy high-heeled boots, a container of disinfectant, paintbrushes, teapots, a can of diet coke, a game of snakes and ladders, a meditating figure with a Shiva Linga, an antelope, a woman carrying the sun in her hand - they could be a book of dreams, or simply the random jarring and jotting of disassociated notes, non-linear thoughts, day dreams and fragmented memories that crowd our days and nights. 

In each of Seema’s 64 Yoginis (Chaunsath Yogini) a circle inscribed in a square holds an image of a deity from this powerful female collective. Based on a Sanskrit term, the Yogini is a female master practitioner of yoga possessing magical and supernatural powers. Seema has a profound sense of identification with the energizing and uniquely transgressive force of the Yogini, having visited and enacted personal rituals and public performances at several of India’s both celebrated and abandoned Yogini temples. While drawing from traditional symbolism and meaning, Seema infuses the yogini with own sense of meaning and identification.  Although Yogini’s appear prominently in her paintings and sculpture, this series of small etchings is unique in that all 64 Yoginis can be apprehended together as arranged in a downward facing triangle symbolic of female energy.  

Serigraphy is an exacting and labor-intensive medium requiring the layering and ordering of multiple screens containing images and colors. Although producing serigraphs in a professional atelier has allowed for precise registration, Seema finds that working in her own studio allows her to take advantage of the vulnerability and surprise of error. In this case, imperfection offers more possibilities for creativity than perfection, as a slight misregistration between layers can create unexpected overlays and zips of color at the edges of forms.  While in her paintings she arrives at one final work of art, through the serigraphic process each piece in an edition might be slightly different.  

Seema’s exquisite version of the classic and exceedingly complex iconography of Viswaroopa is a tour de force of the serigraphic process.  Here the cosmic Vishnu revealed to Arjuna in the Bhavagad Gita is envisioned as an undulating torrent of circles linked by lotus vines and wave forms of water and air. Each of the circles of various sizes holds one of Vishnu’s avatars along with Seema’s generously inclusive lexicon of imagery that includes yoginis, matrikas, ghandarvas, the Buddha, and even fragments of a city. Standing before them all is Vishnu’s boar avatar Varaha holding aloft Vishnu Narayana who, massaged by his consort Lakshmi, dreams this marvelous world into existence. Two rows of lotuses, frame and ground the image which bounds this explosive divine creative energy. No less vibrant in color but quite different in temperament, is Rising of the Kundalini featuring a central meditating figure who holds within her both day and night. Floating on an ovoid of lotuses petals, she sits between the cosmos and the city, framed by a double border of lightness and weight - the buoyancy of ghandarvas and the heft of elephants. 

As the process of serigraphy opens up different explorations of color, form, surface and process, many of Seema’s enduring themes take on new life. In series of prints created in 2002, The Golden Womb, a circle sits within a deep blue 20” square, a compositional strategy she employs in many of her works. Here the circle can be seen as both exterior form and interior space - the shape or our world and the womb of life. Playful images curl up against and float beyond the circle’s circumference as women, demigods and cows tattooed with patterns of flora and fauna reflect flashes gold mingled with rainbows of color. As in so much of Seema’s work created throughout her bountiful creative career, they rejoice in the cycle of life and the potentiality of regeneration. 

For Seema and many artists, printmaking not only opens up diverse techniques and effects that expand and transform their work, but importantly allows for a more democratic distribution than is possible with a single painting or sculpture. Although trading the privacy of one’s studio to collaborate with a team of assistants in a professional atelier may transport an artist out of the zone of concentration of creativity that many require, it allows for valuable outside input and response in-process. New images are born from the unique possibilities of the printmaking process while familiar themes can be revisited and reinvented. For Seema, printmaking has contributed a crucial component to her continually rejuvenated creative harvest. 

Outlook on Food Security in India – The Future Scenarios to 2033
Speaker: Prof. Parmod Kumar, Professor, Agricultural Development and Rural Transformation Centre (ADRTC), Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru

Moderator: Shri Siraj Hussain, Visiting Senior Fellow, ICRIER 

The talk will cover food security – past history, present and future scenarios as well as the reforms required to strengthen agriculture in India