Tributaries of the Mind
Hema Bharadwaj
May 13 – June 3, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 13 | 3-5pm
Kahlil Gibran’s poem “Fear” starts with, “It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear” and ends with, “The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”
Tributaries of the Mind reflects the many paths I repeatedly take in order to vanquish my fears and become one with the larger Self. As a multidisciplinary artist, I use different mediums to help express my inner landscape, one that is impressed with the grooves of motherhood, messy meanderings of daily life, and lately, menopause.
Stuffed pantries, bottled emotions, cluttered islands full of daily life’s elements, compost, gardening, messy environments, weeds, seemingly insignificant objects, sacred symbols, old crumpled cotton saris, bleeding or lack thereof, bodily changes, cooking and eating our feelings, hearing colors sing, are to me all vast subjects worthy of exploration. The play between reality and abstraction, between the divine and the mundane, brings new color, marks, textures, and ideas to my work.
Like a wild gardener who embraces all that the land brings, I love expressing chaos through my brushwork and weaving it around pools of calm. A direct reference to what I see in the world. Without the extreme contrasts we experience, we would not grow as humans. I hope my work always creates an immersive experience, a shift or a visceral response within the viewer.
