Seema Kohli
Profile, 2024

Seema Kohli (b. 1960) is a multi-disciplinary artist working through the imagination of mythical and fantastical worlds from a feminist eye. Engaging with visual and performative mediums,Kohli explores the themes of beauty and sensuality echoed in philosophy and spirituality studies across civilization. Her work primarily celebrates the cosmic feminine and its relationship to forces of creation and destruction. There is a focused engagement with the concept of Hiranyagarbha or The Golden Womb; she attempts to create new artistic identities by reshaping belonging, bringing the past and the present into a dialogue through a process of decay, hybridization and transformation.

Spanning over five decades of experiments in the form and language, Kohli’s works live in multiple museums and institutional collections all over the world, including the British Museum (UK), Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts (India) Birth Rites Collection (UK), Rubin Museum (USA, Lalit Kala Akademi (India) to name a few.

Kohli has done several large–scale murals, some of which are included in the Supreme Court (New Delhi), Sardar Patel Bhawan (Patna, Bihar), Delhi and Mumbai International Airports, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her works have also been shown at collateral events such as the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016), Venice Biennale of Art/Architecture (2015, 2016), ARCO [Madrid] (2008), Art Basel, and at the India Art Fair (2010-2024), AsiaSociety HK, among many others. Kohli has also been an invited speaker at several conferences and institutions, including TEDx (2012), WIN Conference (2013-2015), NGMA (Bangalore, 2010, 2014, 2016), Harvard University, University of California at Davis, University of Chicago, University of Connecticut and the University of Buffalo.

Kohli lives and works in New Delhi, India.