I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Gita Joshi, who is an independent curator working with artists and spaces to put together art exhibitions.. She is also the host of The Curator’s Salon podcast.
Eclipse, oil painting by Simona Ruscheva
What ideas do you explore in your work?
I am very interested in mythology, esotericism and spirituality, and how we present and express our inner universe through visual language. One of the main ideas I explore is finding our very essence of who we are and the source we all come from. This I consider to be my ultimate idea, which can be looked at and explored in multiple ways. Mythology and ancient history is one of the knowledge bases that I use through the prism of my own background. I also like digging into symbolism and how that is reflected in different cultures and preserved through time, and is yet very much valid today.
I also want to show how rich and powerful our culture is, directly using visual elements from it. I like to fuse two seemingly different ideas into one to create a deeper level of understanding and appreciation of our heritage, and show how important that is to the formation of who we are as people.
I have a favourite quote from Terry Pratchett that really summarizes the above – “If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”