Shalini Seereeram exhibits The Awakening at Soft Box

ARTIST Shalini Seereeram believes in being creative, productive and continually challenging herself to do and see things differently.

She said she works on her art every day, except for the times she is “on the road.” But once she has a minute, she is thinking about or sketching ideas for something new to create.

Her latest challenge to herself, the use of 3D in mixed media, is on display at The Awakening, a solo exhibition at Soft Box Gallery, St Clair.

For The Awakening, Seereeram produced 21 pieces with elements of mosaics, painting, collage and sculpting. There is a strong East Indian influence in her use of flowers, hues of blue and human figures. They also include beads, stones, fabric, bottle caps, driftwood, wire, tile and glass which adds colour, texture and vibrancy to her work.

She told WMN when she started working on pieces for her show, she felt as if something was holding her back and distracting her. A friend suggested meditation and the clearing of her chakras.

“These are not things that I normally like to believe in or dare to even entertain. But I said, ‘Let me give it a chance and go through a meditation session.’ I went through it and so much of opened in me and so much was cleansed from me, and so much cleared for me and there was so much relief.

“That was the catalyst for me to start doing this work, and I started observing things a bit differently. It was an awakening.”

She said she generally had very busy days, so she created a sanctuary at her home in Chaguanas by surrounding herself with plants, including fruit trees, and her ten dogs. When she did the meditation session, she realised the sanctuary she created outside of herself was not reflected inside herself, and it allowed her to connect the two.

As she gained new clarity and saw new connections in “fragments of life,” it translated to her work. This included the theme of nature, represented in her use of lotus flowers and the element of water.

In addition, she said she has been experimenting with three dimensions and wanted to challenge herself for this exhibition. She bought a scroll saw to create body parts, and between the wooden pieces and pieces of glass for the mosaic touches, she felt she was making her own jigsaw puzzles.

“I wanted to challenge myself to do a three-dimensional show even though it was a little dangerous using the saws or glass that cut my hands or sanding stuff that sand my skin off.

“Being a person who does not have formal training in a lot of these things, I am challenging myself to learn how to use these tools.”

As with much of her work, there is also an Indian aesthetic. She said her grandfather was an indentured labourer but the connection with her ancestry was truly awakened when the Indian trade fairs came to Trinidad and Tobago.

She admired the workmanship and attention to detail which inspired her and infused her work. She realised that workmanship was always in TT, found in a lot of older homes but adapted by the Europeans who brought it to TT.

“But we did not hold on to it. We let it go to adapt to modern America. We are letting go of quaint things from our history that are valuable.”

She said although she is of Indian descent, she is also West Indian, which she believes to be valuable, meaningful and beautiful. She uses her heritage to offer value to the world through her art.

Fight for art

Seereeram, 52, recalled when she was nine and the family’s home burnt down. The family lost all their possessions and, due to her father’s resulting depression, lost the supermarket he had started about a year before.

They moved from a highly-populated area of Chaguanas to the outskirts “in the bush” into the canefields where her father used to work before becoming a businessman.

She described the area as a place where it felt folklore could be real. Nature became important to her and she often admired the stars and the noises of the crickets and frogs.

“The show itself is trying to draw on nature and that connectivity with things that are bigger than we are. We’re so interconnected but we don’t give ourselves the time to realise that.

“In a way, it’s like the connection in the mycelium network. Nature is a very big conduit in our lives; it connects to the larger expanse of what the universe could possibly mean, and people and their auras.”

She enjoys mixed media because when she first started painting, she did not have traditional materials or equipment. She grew up using whatever she found and made do with what she had on hand to create, including using nail polish as paint.

“I was always the person who would be outside – tactile and creative – because we didn’t really have much when I was growing up. So I would take things and make things. I would be out in the mud sculpting things.”

She said when the rubble from her family’s old house was brought to her new home to fill in the land, she found things like horseshoes, bicycle licences, old windows as frames and other items to make a world for herself.

Now, she likes to extend the life of found objects. She said when she sees old buildings being demolished, she just knows there are valuable things there like sprockets, old windows, coins, old sewing machines and driftwood.

“I like to repurpose them and give them renewed value, meaning and purpose. I think there is beauty in so much we ignore and take for granted.”

She recalled, in primary school, a teacher told the students to draw a scene from a book. The teacher was surprised at her work and told her she did really well. That encouragement stuck with her.

She said even though she excelled in secondary school, she was not given a foundation in art because the curriculum was barely adhered to and the art teachers did not like her.

“Initially it was more out of defiance that I stuck with art. The more my art teachers disliked me was the more I fought to be creative. I had to show them I could do this.

“I have that fight in me to always do better than before, keep moving one step ahead. That’s one thing that took me through life.”

After secondary school, due to unforeseen circumstances, she was not registered to do art at A Levels, so when she finished school she created a portfolio and applied to do graphic design at John Donaldson Technical Institute in Port of Spain. It was the first formal training in art she ever had.

One of the teachers there was impressed with her work and gave her the opportunity to work at BWIA Beat magazine, now Caribbean Beat. She remained part of the team until 2019.

She worked as a graphic designer with several advertising agencies and continued creating her art pieces. She also studied jewellery design at UTT and was awarded the President's Medal for excellence in 1997. Around that time, she entered several pieces in various group exhibitions with the Art Society of TT.

But what she considered to be her first exhibition was in 2000 in Barbados.

“When I did that show, I don’t think I ever looked back. I did small jobs along the way, including illustrations for Caribbean Beat and graphic design commissions, but my focus was on my artwork.”

That focus paid off in 2002 when fine arts dealer, the late Mark Pereira, approached her to do her first solo exhibition in TT.

Since then, her work has been exhibited in TT, Barbados, the United Arab Emirates, England and the US.

Seereeram said whenever she sells at a show, she tries to give to charities or NGOs that support both humans and animals, or she may auction some of her pieces to help meet a specific need.

This year alone she gave or plans to give to two families whose homes were destroyed in fires, Hurricane Beryl victims, the TT Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Venus Doggess of Love in Tobago, The Shelter and other homes for battered women and children, UNICEF and organisations she had personally seen do good work.

“I believe in giving back. You do something good, you give it back to the universe and I believe the universe protects you or provides in return – even if it’s something small like preventing your car from getting hit.”

The Awakening continues until October 19 at Soft Box Gallery, St Clair.