ArtsBespoke
Photograph of Seema Kohli

The Artists of the House · 25

Seema Kohli

b. 1960 · Delhi

Delhi artist whose gold and silver leaf works explore the cosmic feminine and the idea of the golden womb, Hiranyagarbha.

Photograph: Miss Pauli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

HiranyagarbhaFeminine divineSensualityCreationHiranyagarbhaFeminine divineSensualityCreationHiranyagarbhaFeminine divineSensualityCreationHiranyagarbhaFeminine divineSensualityCreation
Born
1960
Birthplace
Delhi
Medium
Acrylic and ink, Gold and silver leaf, Installation, Film, Sculpture

Seema Kohli was born in Delhi in 1960, completed her graduate studies at Miranda House, University of Delhi, and lives and works in New Delhi. Her practice spans painting, murals, installation, performance, film and sculpture, and often uses gold and silver leaf. Her themes include the cosmic feminine and the Hiranyagarbha, or Golden Womb.

She won a gold medal at the Florence Biennale in 2009 for her film Swayamsiddha, and received the Lalit Kala Akademi National Award for Women in 2008. She has held more than 30 solo shows in cities including Venice, Brussels, London, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Delhi and Mumbai. Her works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore, and the Rubin Museum.

A life, dated

AB / TIMELINE

  1. 1960

    Born in Delhi.

  2. 2009

    Won a gold medal at the Florence Biennale for her film Swayamsiddha, Myth, Mind and Movement.

  3. 2016

    Created a large installation of coloured cutting chai glasses at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.

  4. 2019

    Had a six month exhibition at the Museum of Sacred Art in Durbuy, Belgium.

  5. 2022

    Held the solo exhibition Tat Tvam Asi at Cromwell Place, London.

  6. 2023

    Held the solo exhibition Cut From The Same Cloth at Bikaner House, New Delhi.

Held in public collections

AB / COLLECTIONS

  • Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, which holds her artist book A Storm in My Teacup

Enquiries

Begin with a conversation

Looking for a particular period or subject by Seema Kohli? Tell the house what you are after.

Write to Client Advisory

Speak to the house

Buying and private salesMr. Shyam Babu Naidu+91 70212 36700WhatsApp
Exhibitions and viewingsMr. Yashwant Naidu+91 98674 36486WhatsApp
Artists and curationMr. Prakash Bal Joshi+91 98690 14555WhatsApp
The FounderMs. Sonu Agarwal+91 75062 45556WhatsApp
The Chairman's officeMr. Ashwin Agarwal+91 93230 05554WhatsApp
Client AdvisoryMr. Arnav AgarwalGet in touchWhatsApp

Works from the house

AB / WORKS

Sanjeev Sonpimpare, Embrace beneath the banyan: a square painting of two blue figures in an embrace in front of a banyan with hanging roots, high-rise towers and low rooftops.

Figures & portraits

Embrace beneath the banyan

Sanjeev Sonpimpare. Two figures, one in deep ultramarine and one in pale cornflower, hold each other in the foreground, their forms cut from flat colour with scratches of red showing through.

A square painting: a large vermilion half face in profile with a green eye, ringed by seated green and yellow deities, with a winged cow leaping over a brown and green chequerboard.

Devotional & narrative

Vermilion face with Kamadhenu

Ramesh Gorjala. A large vermilion half face in profile, with a single green eye, anchors this square canvas.

A square Kalamkari style painting: a saffron yellow face in profile with a gold nose ring, a crimson lotus panel at the right, and Maa Lakshmi Ji seated on a lotus inside the contour within a patterned sari border.

Devotional & narrative

Lakshmi on the lotus, saffron profile

Ramesh Gorjala. A saffron face in profile, a gold ring at the nostril, sets the key of the canvas.

Chandra Morkonda, The golden tree and the white bull: a tall painting of a great tree with blue-and-gold leaves rising from a golden trunk and tangled roots, with a white lotus bank at the left, a white bull at the right and a crescent moon on a vermilion ground.

Landscape, nature & trees

The golden tree and the white bull

Chandra Morkonda. A great tree stands against a vermilion ground, its leaves shaped in blue and veined in gold, each a small tree in itself, set over a field of ringed and patterned colour.

All works Abstract Figures Devotional Landscape Ravi Varma Press stones