7 Yokings of Felicity

A painful strength, an invisible anti-sun, a forced source of energy, a shadow of spiritual light - the Black Sun appears in the oldest oral traditions of the world. It is mentioned in the Rig Veda along with Martand, the mortal egg. This symbolism of the twin, the conflict of the opposites, as also the unity of opposites, is deeply significant.

Paralleled in ancient Greek wisdom, the analogy of the twin can be extended to any plane: like the Vedic twin sisters, Usha and Ratri (day and night); or the vertices of a particular frame or a set of co-ordinates changing from one to another; 'cold things grow hot, a hot thing cold', 'a moist thing withers, a parched thing is wetted'. Here, drawing upon Hiranya, the Cloth of Gold in Vedic literature, the artist uses Kimkhwab fabric, a traditional Varanasi silk brocade woven heavily with gold thread.
 
This choice reflects her progress through an on-going dialogue with the Black Sun. In recent years, her journey draws upon her interactions with light, particularly in a 100 book project (each book consisting of seven pages), in which the last book was made with a gilded paper that reflected a movement to a higher plane of consciousness. A work that brings together elemental invocations of cloth, and cloth making, into a rigorous, sculptural work. Martand, the eighth son of the goddess Aditi, was cast away.

Her remaining sons manifest themselves in this installation as seven, cosmic structures. Each is a solar being, Aditya, a reference to the mutable minds of men desirous of being yoked to The Felicity, an eternal sunshine. Each is constructed in proportional ratios so that the first is the 1/7 of the part of the last structure. Gold and grey, small and large, part and whole; the deep ochre features patterns of grey alluding to the grey areas that intersect and hamper the state of primordial-ultimate contentment. Unwoven gold threads represent the simplicity that underlies a composite form. The warps of bliss are tethered together to the roof, hinting at an inexpressible freedom.