Vasuki swirls in urgent, expressive strokes, painted with the immediacy of street markings. The purposeful splatters evoke the visual language of contemporary Indian walls, not as disrespect toward the serpent, but as a reflection of our lived reality, where tobacco stains and graffiti coexist with sacred symbols. Though Vasuki holds immense mythological power, the snake remains culturally feared and unloved; revered only in story, rarely in life. This work confronts that contradiction without judgement, simply by placing the serpent in the same visual world we inhabit.
A vivid, contemporary reimagining of Shiva’s cosmology- where ancient symbols, sacred animals, and lush couture- coded colour palettes merge with the rawness of street textures and modern India. Each work brings together the ornamental and the primal, the spiritual and the urban, the divine and the everyday contradiction of a culture that reveres animals in myth yet neglects them in life.
Across the series appears Shiva’s powerful liberation mantra, written in full:
“ॐ त्र्यम्बकं यजामहे सुगन्धिं पुष्टिवर्धनम् उर्वारुकमिव बन्धनान् मृत्योर्मुक्षीय मामृतात्।”
(“Free us from bondage; restore us to ourselves.”)
The series returns Shiva to his essence: the wild, free, untamed consciousness- dreadlocked, dancing, unconcerned with norms, unshackled by shame, embodying OM as the pulse of liberation.
Every canvas becomes a mantra in itself: a reminder that all life is sacred.
