Both suddenly and eternally she appears, as Adya - The Primal One. A tornado made of all the elements at once, the angry goddess with unbound hair, from the oldest of forests - arrives with her wild justice. A justice beyond right or wrong, she is both the darkness and the light.
Quenching her blood thirst through sacrifices, and entertaining her with glorious and wild dances around colossal fires, her worshipers generate an immense energy – that reaches the heavens in all its turbulence. Kali has no interest in a dull and devoted believer. Her true worshippers are in nature themselves, and strong enough to understand what the authority of the wild means. A cosmic force that has little to do with our selfish morality, badly disguising benefit and greed. A goddess who can’t be bought or flattered, looks to be appeased and celebrated by the brave and the aware. The ones who know that her justice is not built for them, and understand the complex meandering river that moves away from us back into the forest. Towards a breathing and alive darkness that one is never lost in. For the trees and animals there are not lost, and we can ask them assent to know and be known. For she is Yoga – Nidra, unwitnessed nature and unperceived reality and here we come upon a part of creation, not destined for us. And in that stillness, a raging goddess, never consumed by herself, runs past us, naked as she hunts.
About the Series:
In India, there is a constant burden on women to be “Devi-like”. Through this series, the artist attempts a reverse deification of the goddesses, making them appear like real women, in a real world. The series is an exploration not just of duality, but of multiplicity. It compels us to question our attitudes - women towards themselves, men towards women. How does the idea of a goddess coexist within every woman? How do we, as a society, so casually dismiss, disrespect, disregard, and defile in our everyday existence, those who we have bedecked with gold and enshrined in a temple?
