Amma

A graduate of M.S.University Baroda, Indian artist Blaise Joseph has a deep interest and commitment to art education projects. Blaise equates the overpowering negativity within us to the modern crisis that causes damage and destruction to humanity and the cosmos. His work evolves out of his engagement with grassroots realities in India, and these experiences have made him aware of the presence of the spirit and its virtues, sensitivity, simplicity and contentment.

For his wall in Lodhi Colony, Blaise chose to make the portrait of a mother figure who has diverse manifestations, as Mother Nature, she is carrying the memories of lost lands. In an urban context, our cities are becoming concrete jungles, inhabited by people who are migrants in one way or another. The concrete jungle is a reminder of their own mothers, and mother nature is represented in the forests and agricultural lands that they have been compelled to leave behind. She also represents indigenous communities who are pollinators and can sustain ecological diversity with the knowledge they possess, yet who are forcibly displaced from their homelands. The mother painted in this artwork is in the image of Blaise's own mother, who currently resides in Kerala.