The Oracle
Fine liners on paper. A1 size. 200+ hours
I come from the foothills of the great Western Ghat mountain ranges of South India. We have an unbroken culture of shamanism that has existed for thousands of years.
The 'Velichappadu' or 'the one who goes to the light' is one of the shamans in our culture.
When our forefathers cleared the ancestral growth forests to make space for new villages, they consciously left patches of the forests untouched. These untouched holy groves called 'Kaavu' were preserved as a bank for the forests to save its wisdom and consciousness.
These holy groves acted as bowl for the spirit of the forest. The present day science has discovered that forests are a society of trees that communicate to each other through fungal networks.
Every society has collective wisdom and awareness. These holy groves were a repository of the collective wisdom of that forest. if the village gets abandoned and the forest recaptures the land, it will be a conscious forest again. Not a confused forest.
The conscious spirit of the forest is worshipped in these groves in the form of a serpent.
When the shaman goes into a trance in these groves, it is believed that that spirit of the forest enters into his body and mind.
I have tried to express this state of trance in this artwork. Where the awareness of the forest becomes the awareness of the shaman.
The shaman's own awareness gets subdued and the forest takes over.
The shaman is portrayed with his ceremonial sword that is shaped like a serpent.
This artwork is an ode to an ancient awareness that is still thriving in the modern era.
