As Deepti Malla Datt looks back in time,
she finds herself connecting the dots. After being on the founding team of MTV
and Channel [V], Deepti Datt has worked as creative producer on some of the
better known events and campaigns in fashion, music, and art on the
sub-continent. She now realises that while she was working on some of the
projects that went on to define our country’s pop-culture, at the peak of her
career, the inherent talent in her was taking shape unknowingly. Now, a few
years later, and after adding Goa to her list of residential addresses, Deepti
finds herself completely immersed in a different form of art, something she
describes as a natural progression of her work in the media world.
Deepti, who now shuttles between Goa,
Mumbai and Los Angeles, says, “I believe my art is more than natural
progression. A lot of my colleagues from my time in the media world have
evolved into artists, directors, filmmakers, photographers, composers,
musicians and designers. Media draws creative people, and the crazy deadlines,
discipline or (sometimes) chaos can hone an inherent talent beautifully.
Deepti describes what she does as
‘functional art’, and makes mixed-media photo-paintings and light
installations, and confesses being intrigued by how the aesthetics of light
define the character, atmosphere and milieu of a space. Deepti began Axirvaad,
a gallery restaurant in Assagao, and returned to Goa with the first showing of
her work at The Story of Light festival in Panjim in January this year.
Recently, she launched her collection of photo-paintings in Siolim at the
Beethoven Gallery.
The artist has been doing work in the space
of the feminine paradigm for some time and while she was working with the
subject of women’s upliftment and empowerment, Deepti was introduced to the
concept of 64 yoginis which represent the 64 aspects of the feminine paradigm;
the mythic way of adjusting the archetypes. The subject fascinated Deepti and
had a powerful impact on her encouraging her to discover the myth and the
history behind 64 yogini. Her work, ‘The Heroine’s Journey – Myths and
Archetypes of the Divine Feminine’ is about reinterpreting the 64 yogini in a
modern way.
Speaking about her work, Deepti explains,
“My work is an invitation to recognise the profound engagement with divinity
that life is. And for women, specifically, my work is meant as an ‘evolution
trigger event’, an invitation to rise, to recognise in themselves the embodied
divinity of a feminine archetype. We are
inculcated with the consumerist depiction of the commodified feminine in the
public forum, with commerce deciding what becomes the accepted visual norm. By
initiating a differentiated visual language of representation, and one that
still resonates universally – which is the core purpose and meaning of art –
the intention in my work is to instigate a shift in the perceiver, to awaken an
authentic perception of the archetypal feminine – one as powerful and
empowered, alive, present, and relevant.
My work is my sādhanā, it is ceremony, practice, and ritual.”
