Samsara and Metamorphosis: The Mystical World of Seema Kohli
Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, California
Seema Kohli
Seema Kohli
The British Museum, London holds significant works by Kohli within its permanent collection. In 2025, the Museum acquired The Word for the World is Home, a series of twelve anatomical drawings rooted in intergenerational memory and medicinal knowledge. Earlier, in 2022, it had acquired I Lalla – I, I Lalla – II, and Series-Narrative and Songs of Hiranyagarbha of Yogamaya.
The Word for the World is Home comprises twelve anatomical drawings accompanied by text reproduced from Kohli’s grandfather’s Yunani medicinal manuscripts. Although she did not read Urdu or Persian, the physical presence of the books — their stitching, scent, fragility, and age — became a site of intimate remembrance. Through drawing, she traced a lineage of healing that had once shaped her ancestral home.
The series was first presented as part of Project Home (2019) at the Kolkata Centre for Creativity and was later exhibited in Khula Aasman (2025) at Seema Kohli Studio, New Delhi. Emerging from her engagement with her father K. D. Kohli’s autobiography Mitr Pyare Nu, the broader project transformed family archives into a meditation on displacement, inheritance, and belonging.
The anatomical works extended this reflection — evoking a home that had also functioned as a clinic, where care, knowledge, and tenderness were inseparable. Through image and text, the drawings became vessels of embodied memory, mapping the fragile yet enduring transmission of wisdom across generations.
The inclusion of these works in the collection of The British Museum marks an important recognition of Kohli’s practice, situating deeply personal narratives of healing, migration, and ancestry within an international institutional context.
“I touch you Pitaji in the moth ridden books
Which I know you have yourself bound
Stitched it with your own hands
In the aged smell of the fragmented words
Of the language you spoke, you wrote
I hear the words evaporating
In the stories of the disintegrating faded photos
Trying to pull out a few spoken words
I try to snatch a few voices
Grab them by their form
Drawing from the drawings some meaning
Of inheritance warmth of yesteryears”
-Seema Kohli
Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, California
Gallerie Nvya, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi
Shridharani Gallery at Triveni Kala Sangam, presented by Gallerie Nvya, Delhi
National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru
Seema Kohli Studio, New Delhi and The Partition Museum, Delhi
Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
Bihar Museum, Patna
Bikaner House, New Delhi presented by Gallerie Nvya
Venue: Sunder Nursery, New Delhi, Presented by Gallery Ragini
Kolkata Centre for Creativity, Kolkata
Tao Art Gallery
Acrylic Color, Water Colors, Ink On Treated Archival Canvas And Acrylics Sheet With LED Lights54 x 61 inches2017
Acrylic, Water-Color And Ink On Treated Archival Canvas And Acrylics Sheet2017
Drawings And Calligraphy Reproduced From Ancestral Books, Ink And Pencil On Archival Paper2019
Drawings And Calligraphy Reproduced From Ancestral Books, Ink And Pencil On Archival Paper2019
Drawings And Calligraphy Reproduced From Ancestral Books, Ink And Pencil On Archival Paper2019
Wooden SculptureH 10.5ft x L 9.5ft x W 4.7ft2019
Tea Stains, Gouache And Inks On Paper13 x 4 ft2014
Tea Stains, Gouache And Inks On Paper13 x 4 ft2014
Glass- Reinforced Polymer16 x 14 x 11 inches2018
Intaglio Zinc Plate Etchings On Fabriano Paper5 x 5 inch diameter2014
Intaglio Zinc Plate Etchings On Fabriano Paper5 x 5 inch diameter2014
Intaglio Zinc Plate Etchings On Fabriano Paper5 x 5 inch diameter2014
Intaglio Zinc Plate Etchings On Fabriano Paper5 x 5 inch diameter2014
Intaglio Zinc Plate Etchings On Fabriano Paper5 x 5 inch diameter2014
Intaglio Zinc Plate Etchings On Fabriano Paper5 x 5 inch diameter2014
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf60 x 66 inches2018
Sandstone Sculpture5 x 11 x 24 inches2019
Sandstone Sculpture5 x 11 x 24 inches2019
Sandstone Sculpture5 x 11 x 24 inches2019
Sandstone Sculpture5 x 12 x 24 inches2019
Bronze45 x 25 x 17 inches2019
Thread, Beads And Sequence On Canvas Cloth62 x 69 inches2023
Thread, Beads And Sequence On Canvas Cloth56.75 x 55 inches2023
Thread, Beads And Sequence On Canvas Cloth54.75 x 46.5 inches2023
Thread, Beads And Sequence On Canvas Cloth47.75 x 74 inches2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf5 x 7 ft2023
Gambhari Wood, Steel And Brass FittingsW65 x L84 inches2023
Stainless Steel 6mm, Weight 180kg8 x 5 ft2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf6 x 6 ft2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf6 x 6 ft2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf3 x 3 ft2023
Acrylic And Water Colors On Arches, 300gsm, Cold Press Paper10.2 x 14 inches2024
Acrylic And Water Colors On Arches, 300gsm, Cold Press Paper10.2 x 14 inches2024
Acrylic, Watercolours And Inks On 360gsm Paper4 x 5 ft2024
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf6 x 6 ft2024
Bronze4 x 4 x 1.5 ft2019
Pen, Ink, Water And Gouache Colors On Paper (Stuck On Aluminium sheet)45 x 96 inches2020
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf6 x 4 ft2020
5.5 x 9 ft2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf4 x 6 ft2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf3 x 4 ft2025
Woodcut Print On Paper121.92 x 152.4 cm2025
Woodcut On Schoelershammer 165 GSM3 x 3 ft2026
Etching On Arches Paper48 x 120 inches2014
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf8 x 6 ft2025
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With Pure Silver Leaf4 x 10 inches2026
BronzeL36 x W32 x H432018
Drawings On Archival Prints And Archival Ink And Gold Dust24 x 70 inches2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf4 x 6 ft2023
Acrylic Colors And Ink On Canvas With 24kt Gold And Silver Leaf6.7 x 5 ft2023
Khula Aasman
Khula Aasman
Khula Aasman
Khula Aasman
The Golden Womb Series
Khula Aasman
Khula Aasman
Khula Aasman
Tree of life
Khula Aasman
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