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Details

Size: 36 x 27 inches
Medium: K3 Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Archival Paper
Style: Digital Art
Edition: Edition of 10 + 2 Artist Prints
Signature: Bottom Right in English

Description

The oldest hymns were composed on her banks, a glorious beauty with her lilies and swans flowing through Punjab, Sindh and Rajasthan. A river of language, imagination and music, she is Shatarupa - the goddess of infinite forms. All addressing the conception of creation - the one question - Who am I?
In taking that step, from being wakeful to understanding, her unblinking eyes gather as her mind absorbs. For she is the goddess of all that is known and understood. She is knowledge. Immersed in music and texts, she remains aloof, claiming the sovereignty of the mind over every other reality. Watching syllable by syllable appear, she witnesses the construction of knowledge.
Despite all efforts to pair her with one god or the other, she remained distant. Interested in wisdom alone, calm and content in isolation, her journey was a solitary one. Her stories are sparse. In the pantheon of gods who display power, looking for lovers, partners, wealth, or even for power itself, she stayed detached. A unique manifestation in which she needs little else but herself.
Although, as a river, she shatters the separation between Purusha and Prakriti, mind and matter, body and soul, and the strange belief that nothing in nature leads to the mind. Her state of being and the secrets she holds, keeps us from being paralyzed by wisdom. Despite all that is known, our world (once, with her river in it), pursues its course.

About the Series:
This artwork is part of the “Sister Misfortune” series, through which the artist, Smruthi Gargi Eswar, narrates lesser-known stories from Indian mythology, while reflecting on the narrative surrounding women in our culture. Various Indian goddesses (devis) are depicted with a refreshing artistic lens.
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?
  • ABOUT Smruthi Gargi Eswar

    Smruthi Gargi Eswar is a painter, graphic artist and storyteller. She studied at the Baroda Faculty of Fine Arts and Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore briefly. Her art studies started much earlier, while she was still a student at The Valley School KFI. From a fine arts education, Smruthi moved on to graphic design and photography almost immediately. Eventually she returned to the world of art, finding within it, an avenue to explore, address and express at a more personal level. Working with hidden and forgotten mythologies, she brings them to life with a highly unique and singular expression—one that is contemporary while still carrying within it a deep sense of time.
    With shows travelling to Berlin & Syke, Budapest, New York, Cochin, Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad, Smruthi works from her studio space—Studio Smu—in Bangalore, India. She has also enjoyed collaborating with designers, performance artists and other creative professionals. In 2014, she held a solo show in New Delhi, showcasing works from her “Sister Misfortune” series at acclaimed fashion designer Ritu Kumar’s flagship store. The hugely successful art series, for which Smruthi has been creating works for over a decade, has also been exhibited in Kochi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Moving on to painting on canvas, she has launched her most recent series, “The Centre is Everywhere”, with Artisera in her home city, Bangalore.
    With her photography work published in India and the Philippines, and her performative story telling hosted by Ballhaus Ost in Berlin, Smruthi’s art has been engaged with and collected by art patrons around the world.

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  • ABOUT Digital Art

    Digital art is a term used to describe an artistic practice that uses digital technology either as part of the creative or the presentation process. It falls under the umbrella world of new media art. Since the 1960s, various different names have been used to describe digital art, and some of the other commonly used terms include computer art, multimedia art, and even graphic art.

    Digital artworks can be created as unique or editioned pieces. To maintain the value and exclusivity of the artwork, an artist would typically destroy the source file (of the artwork), once the number of pre-decided pieces have been sold. Digital artworks may be presented digitally, but more commonly, they are printed works of art that can be hung on a wall, much like a painting.

    Contrary to misconception, creating digital art also requires artistic skills such as sketching, drawing and colouring, as digital artists use all of these to create their artworks on the computer. While there may be some lingering debate about the pros and cons of this new age medium of creation, there is no doubt, that digital art has created a vast expansion of the creative sphere.  

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