‘Creating was my way to connect with myself and others’: artist Seema Kohli

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.

I have systematically deconstructed sexuality, which figures as a voracious fecundity and creative potential that cuts across the sexes. This not only exonerates the body from the hegemonic structures of binary gender that delimit its metamorphic fluidity but also veers it steadily towards more organic and constructive plains. Even though sexuality appears to be appropriated here by a gynocentric paradigm that views it in essentialist feminine terms of fertility and procreation, what I tried is radicalising its compounding with the force of creation and self-actualisation that is not withheld from male subjects. In fact, some of my works actively confirm and emphasise its presence in male as well as female subjects, ostensibly demonstrating the ways in which the former overcome their expected gender roles to tap into this vast reservoir of feminine creative potential.

This exhibition brings together over 40 years of your art practice. How was your initiation into art? I believe you showed an inclination towards art even in your formative years. Could you please talk about this journey?

As a three-year-old, I was a total introvert. It was my parents who introduced me to paper and colour. There was no stopping after that. The colourful affair had begun and I never needed any company thereafter. Today, my art is a conversation with myself and my environs; my body with the trees, birds, skies and rivers. It is now an engagement with the philosophical enquiries of life. It is through the visual language of art that I grasp the metaphysical truth of existence and the cosmic energy that is responsible for all creation. From childhood, creating was my way to connect with myself and with others, a quiet therapy that still fuels my practice even today.

A lot of your work is also personal, influenced by your own experiences and family history, including performances based on your father’s autobiography Mitr Pyare Nu. Could you talk about these personal elements in your work?

I had been developing a concept and narrative since 2017, inspired by my father’s autobiography, Mitr Pyare Nu. I presented performative readings at eight universities in the US before launching my first show, curated by Adwait, in 2019 at the Kolkata Creative Center. It explored themes of home, nostalgia, and memory, showcasing original photographs and ancestral materials alongside my artworks.

Building on this, I’ve focused on my memories, extracting elements such as the Hindu Kush mountains, Katas Raj temples, and the flora and fauna he described. Our conversations about his childhood village revealed that this story transcends our family — it is emblematic of any cultural community. It highlights the interconnectedness of spaces, animals and nature, emphasising the importance of sharing these narratives. The work is constantly evolving based on my concepts and subconscious influences. The works were influenced by the memory and loss of my father. This urgency to create and explore his writings drove me to experiment with various mediums, such as watercolours and lithographs.

In your solo ‘Khula Aasman’ you recreated the memory of your ancestral home in your new studio. If you could recall that experience and process.

I grew up hearing stories about Pind Dadan Khan (in Jhelum district of Pakistan) — the land, the rivers and the relationships. Even though I’ve never been there, those stories resonate deeply within me. The memories felt like an integral part of who I am, despite the physical distance. These recollections inspired me to explore my ancestral history and connect it to broader experiences of migration and loss. The work is deeply rooted in memory. I am working off my father’s and grandfather’s memory, since I have not seen those areas. Even though I did not see my grandfather as a hakim/doctor/physician, I understood his passion for service in the way he dealt with life and people.

This brought me closer to people who, while not my family, I considered to be part of my extended community through the common experience of forced migration and of the cycles of suffering that Partition brought. I wanted to delve deeper into these complexities of human behaviour. In ‘Khula Aasman’, I interlaced multimedia components — family photographs, audio, phulkari textiles — to reconstruct stories of displacement and loss from my father’s ancestral home. This helped me to articulate both a personal longing and a collective history, brought together under the ‘Open Sky’ of possibility.

Could you discuss your engagements with Bhakti and Sufi poetry and its influences on your work?

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 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.

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