Unending Dance of Light

Unending Dance of Light 
Gallery Veda
13th December 5:30 pm onwards
Yousuf Building
7/644 Jew Town
Kochi-Muziris Biennale Collateral Event 

Seema Kohli’s Unending Dance of Light could also be an “Unending Dance of Life”: for her birth, life, death and rebirth or rejuvenation form an eternal cycle. And everything in the universe is interconnected – people, animals, trees and plants, star dust, spaceships, moons, all inanimate objects, everything that has a name and everything that doesn’t – we are all are part of an endless dance of existence. 

This dance of light and life is animated by a vigorous energy, an energy that the artist perceives as female. That anything exists at all she feels is quite wondrous and worth celebration. Thus her work tends to be vivacious and joyful and suffused with the feminine energy that is driving the cosmos.
Kohli’s works are driven by narrative. Her childhood was “full of stories” and she re-tells these now, pulling elements from other cultures and traditions and from her own imagination, creating a vast vibrant tapestry of work in different media: painting, video, sculpture, drawing, etching and serigraph.

Text by Charty Dugdale

Seema Kohli

Seema Kohli's works reveal a claiming of feminine subjectivities, an altered concept of feminine sexuality. Her works bring into focus a woman's intellect, thought, dreams and realities. The domain of sacred feminine geography with an effulgence of energy emanates from the paintings, where myth, memory and imagination have become the handmaiden of her own artistic oeuvre. Within the genres of sexuality and desire, one can't ignore the parallel journeys of discovery that she has made. Being a student of philosophy, she has inhaled and experienced myriad notions of existence, and has lived emotional and psychological reality. Since last 28 years Seema Kohli has had over 20 solo shows in NY, Dubai, Singapore Delhi,Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore. She works in various mediums other than painting, moving on to sculptures video performances and installations. She has participated in International biennails and art fairs (Venice Biennial of Archicture Beijing Biennial,Art Basel, Shanghai Art Fair, ARCO-Madrid, Singapore Art Stage, Hong Kong, Japan, India Art Fair)
Seema has held interactive presentations of her works at TedEX Chennai, WIN Conference-Rome and Prague, NGMA Bangalore ,Lalit Kala Akademi –New Delhi, Jaipur. Her work can be seen in public art as murals of 10’ x 100’ at the T3,Delhi International Airport, Mumbai International/Domestic Airport, the rescently constructed T2 in Mumbai, the Defense Ministry, ONGC,Tata Raisina Residency, Manipal University, Leela Palace and Ritz Carlton Hotels. Her paintings are in collections with H.E. The President of Singapore Mr. S.R. Nathan; Chairman of the Arts Council of Singapore Mr. Liu Thai Ker; French Embassy in India, Norway High Commissioner ,Camlin, UNDCP, Raj Niwas, Pondicherry: Northern Railways,DRDO, Indian Railways, CCS India, Bharat Bhawan Bhopal, Lalit Kala and Sahitya Kala Akademi and various serious art collectors in India and abroad.
She has extended her art practice from drawing and painting to experimenting with her philosophy by interjecting with the society by the means of installations and spontanious video performances.
Kohli has received the Annual Dayawati Modi Stree Shakti Award 2012, Gold at Florence Biennale 2009,1 Premio "Video, the YFLO Women Achiever’s Award , the LKA National Award for Women in 2008.
Her works are a part of prestigious private and public Museums including Rubin’s Museum,USA ,MOSA in Brussuls.
She has authored a book “I Am” in verse, based on the inter relation of art with her life. Both supporting each other silultaniously.
She lives and works from her studio in New Delhi India.
January 2014StarBuzzzOnline.com