Leaf Birds

Collections
The Porous Self 2015-2023
Leafbirds 2012
Mapping 'Ulat Bansi' 2012
Installations
Shiva-Shakti 2002
Earth Colours 1998

Leafbirds 2012

I discovered a bird living within me. She kept transforming herself from the common crow to the mythical Hamsa; from the black bird to the crane. She tried becoming a peacock, a rooster, a parrot and a macaw. Then slowly she crafted herself out of folklore and mystic poetry. As she crafted herself, she sought the dance of the dervishes and the decorative spirit of the kalamkari artist; She sought the mountain mists and the ocean waves; She sought the scent of wet earth and the colours of her own spirit. She played with her own form, transforming, till she became a leaf. Then she began to fly, float, turn somersaults; she began to play in space. Her space was within me, but strangely she was me. I began calling her and her companion ‘leaf-birds’ ten years ago. I have been seeking to capture these elusive leaf-birds in my works since then.

My art is often a process than a product, a simple quiet celebration of the rhythms of life. I enjoy creating ‘form’, sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative. Each time I explore a new form, I traverse through sound, movement, poetry and space. Line, colour and texture, metaphor and symbol, layers and rhythm are my favourite tools.

Reading Kabir’s poetry which often use the bird as a metaphor to the human soul, gave a new direction to the bird within me. This exhibition is a combinatorial ode in poetry, prose and thought to Kabir’s enormous simplicity and elegance of verse