Paintings – Shilo Shiv Suleman

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.

Eden Everlasting

Eden everlasting is a reclamation of paradise (here on earth)

The archetypal images of Eden are immutable and everywhere- serpent, tree, fig leaf, lovers, fall.
In a series of paintings and sculptures inspired by her time living in Balinese forests, artist Shilo Shiv Suleman reclaims Eden as existing here on earth, in all its imperfections and mistakes. Laced and overgrown with medicinal plants – it reminds us of the alchemy of the earth and our own separation from the metaphorical garden. In her radical and reclaimed Eden- we exist because love exists (no need for guilt or shame)

“So no longer do I wish for eternal paradise,
to love is to recognise Eden in every drunken flood, grieving heart, unanswered text, (patiently waiting)- the intricate garden of human behaviour.
How can we not love it all?
They say (she said) that even Adam cried for Eve after the fall until they were reunited on holy mountain and made love (again) so we could all breathe, seethe, and seek the garden in kiss and tongue.
What need for guilt or shame or fear if we all return to garden after all? My bones nourish roots.
My flesh will perfume flowers.
I will return to the garden, one way or another.
(Held holy)
Eden (you hear me?)
We find our way back.
(As long as love exists)”

Beloved

When I was a child I used to believe that I was in constant communication and conversation with the natural world. The moon followed me home at night, the clouds would hide shapes for me.

When one grows up and falls in love, this relationship with nature is intensified. When in love, the moon shines just for us as we walk down silver streets, the rain falls at the perfect moment of a first kiss.
We give flowers to our lovers, have butterflies in our stomach when touched, every pebble or shell collected while together becomes more significant, more beautiful. And Nature responds too, the Wind caresses, the waves rise and fall and lap up against the shore, we are brushed by leaves and cradled by the earth.

Through ‘Beloved’, I explore the hypothesis that perhaps the greater longing is to be united not just with the beloved, but with nature itself.

‘Beloved’ is an exploration of Nature, Intimacy and Technology.

Art Musings
Mumbai 2014

Buraq

The Burāq (Arabic: الْبُرَاق al-Burāq means lightning (to sparkle). She is a mythical creature in Islamic tradition that was said to be the vehicle of the prophet to the seventh heavens.
She only travels at night.

Her name is derived from برق‎ barq “lightning” or “to beam, flash, glimmer, glisten, glitter, radiate, shimmer, shine, sparkle, twinkle. She comes with a jeweled throat, a lusturous mane, the legs of a horse the wings of a irridiscent impossible bird. A thousand years after the prophet’s ascent to revelation- we live in a country for no women.
Unsafe -womene across the continent begin to evolve to grow wings to fly into another place (far away from here).
In a series of paintings, and wearable sculptures- artist Shilo Shiv Suleman imagines a safe and sacred space for women far above the earth. She begs the mythical creature-
Buraq, take me with you.

India Art Fair
Delhi, 2020

Fertile

An old story from a distant island tells us about a beautiful goddess- her honeyed beauty was so thick that every god who saw her, became attracted to her.

“Unable” to control themselves, and fearing that these scandals could destroy the ancient heavens, the gods conspired to do something about this.
So, they poisoned her, and placed her body beneath the soil,
in a far and dark and hidden place.
But her divinity was so fertile, that from her body began to grow medicinal plants that would forever benefit human kind. From her head grew the coconut, from her nose, lips and ears grew lush greens, From her hair blossomed flowering plants, from her breasts grew ripening fruit, from her arms and hands grew teak and sturdy timbre. From her genitals grew sweet honeyed sugar palm, from her thighs- various types of bamboo, and finally from her belly button- grew rice to feed her lands.

She could not be tamed.
women are – fertile.

In a series of talismans and tapestries, artist Shilo Shiv Suleman explores decolonial female sexuality of South Asia, reclaiming fertility rites of the Far East, and the sacred chambers of the female form to
be – a site of worship (unto itself, and for itself)

Jehangir Art Gallery,
Mumbai 2019