Art Nivedita Mishra’s latest exhibition ‘Nitya’ represents the nine astral bodies

Art Nivedita Mishra remembers her childhood vividly, when she’d enthusiastically dip her fingers into the rice-paste prepared her mother for rangoli. She would eagerly await traditional festivities at her village of Raksimunda, Odisha, and eagerly await the harvest season of Margasira, when every Thursday, at home, Lakshmi pooja would be performed and rangoli would be designed with numerous motifs, including the lotus flower, conch shell, elephant and fish.
“I would visit stone quarries and enjoy the sound of grinder machines and hammers, allowing the stone dust to settle on me,” says Mishra.
Mishra casts different parts of Sati — from her lips to ears, eyes, nose, right foot and anklet — that are believed to have fallen in various parts of India.
“I remember being appreciated and noticed for my art,” says Mishra. She also recalls being fascinated stones and arranging them in varied patterns. “I would gaze at them for hours, finding in them unexpected tints and tonalities and forms. I would visit stone quarries and enjoy the sound of grinder machines and hammers, allowing the stone dust to settle on me,” adds Mishra, 55.

Titled ‘Nitya’, the exhibition at Triveni Kala Sangam is dedicated to her father, politician Nityanand Mishra, who passed away last year.
The centerpiece is an sculptural installation comprising 64 yoginis cast in metal and placed on wood in a triangle form.
Years later, she chisels the stones, giving them numerous shapes and forms. In her ongoing solo in the Capital, she is sharing some of these with the audience. Titled ‘Nitya’, the exhibition at Triveni Kala Sangam is dedicated to her father, politician Nityanand Mishra, who passed away last year. “He was a huge pillar of support and was hugely encouraging,” says Mishra. While she has participated in exhibitions across the world and worked with her husband and NGMA director Adwaita Gadanayak on the ‘Cenotaph’ project at the National Police Memorial (2018), she has been pondering over a solo for some years. It was Gadanayak who booked the venue, giving Mishra a deadline to meet. “It was a surprise but once I knew the exhibition was taking place, things started moving faster,” adds Mishra. Welcoming visitors at the show are pillars chiseled from black marble stones with symbols of navagrahas or the nine planets. She etches a Vedic mantra for each. “The body of work represents the nine astral bodies — Surya, Chandra, Mangala, Budha, Brihaspati, Shukra, Shani, Rahu and Ketu — that influence our life and environment. Their deep, celestial connection with Shiva is depicted through a trishul,” says the graduate from College of Art, Delhi.In the exhibition hall, Mishra casts different parts of Sati — from her lips to ears, eyes, nose, right foot and anklet — that are believed to have fallen in various parts of India. While another work is dedicated to Kamakhya, “who has the power to generate and regenerate life”, the centerpiece is an sculptural installation comprising 64 yoginis cast in metal and placed on wood in a triangle form. “My yoginis are sat-chit-ananda, beyond space, matter and time,” says the art, adding, “These are also inspired the tribes in Odisha and the terracotta figurines of mother goddesses found in villages across India. Faith has no boundaries.”
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