Kali Night painting

Description

This little jewel of a painting was done with colored inks on Lokta paper, a handmade paper made in the Himalaya from plants indigenous to the region.

Kali is the ancient Mother Goddess who destroys obstacles to enlightenment and consumes demons. She is seen as the fierce manifestation of Shakti, Shiva’s female counterpart. Her name means “time” (which consumes all transient things) and also means “black”. She is usually depicted as dark blue in color, similar to avatars of Vishnu, but unrelated to them.

This painting was done in the Hitsuzendo style, which is a zen calligraphy technique in which the artist lets himself become the instrument of his primal engergy, or Chi. This energy is known as Shakti in Sanskrit.