God is a Woman in Love

Through the immersive space which holds the body of work ‘God is a Woman in Love’, multi-media artist Shilo Shiv Suleman tosses and turns like the samudhra manthan, chooses consort, unfolds into eight Ashtanayikas, makes an altar of most intimate.

In ancient India- every god has a love story. In the lake of the mind (mansarovar) ashen blue god and his consort make love into eternity. Parijat turns into a flower for the sake of loving the sun, Lakshmi offers Vishnu a lotus garland after he churns the world for her, and they live forever after in Vaikuntha oceanic.

Indian mythology offers more lovelore to us than any other cosmology. Here love sovereign presides eternal and yet- our loves remain mortal, trying, fickle, confused, abandoned, incomplete like ghosts. The Ashtanayikas in the Natya Shastra are archetypal romantic heroines that repeat themselves across sculpture, classical dance and painting. While their pursuit is always love, the nayikas only exist in relationship to the hero – often deceived, seeking, mourning or waiting for their beloved. What if the nayika sought herself instead of other? What would her world look like?

Comprising large paintings alongside sculptures made in semi-precious stones embedded in brass, the solo space creates a Venusian kingdom of overgrown orchids and comes to the conclusion that the most divine and resplendent form of god is a woman herself.