9.5×7 inches, terracotta, 2025. Right: “My Dupatta is my Cape” by Ghatak Shruti, oil on
canvas, 48×36 inches, 2025. Courtesy
Indian-born, Seattle-based artist Shruti Ghatak’s exhibition, Myths to Mundane, contextualizes India’s plural cultural heritage by reinterpreting and reimagining epic texts from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, along with indigenous folklore. In her work, Ghatak engages in a dialogue with the plasticity of past and present, braiding themes of myth, identity, and memory with personal and collective narratives.
The interview has been edited for clarity.
Savita Krishnamoorthy: Your art practice interrogates the overarching themes of mythology, displacement, memory, and a non-linear continuum of time. What inspired this exploration?
Shruti Ghatak: I am interested in a fluid relationship between past and present, myth and reality, and personal and collective memory. Growing up immersed in India’s rich narrative traditions – ranging from mythological epics to regional folklore, I became fascinated by the ways these stories shape cultural identity and collective memory. My migration to the U.S. introduced me to the complexities of cultural hybridity and displacement, prompting me to reflect on how these ancient narratives continue to resonate in contemporary diasporic experiences, how belonging is constructed, and how displacement reshapes memory and identity.
In my work, I collapse historical and contemporary time, weaving mythological themes with personal and collective experiences of migration. My figurative landscape paintings and terracotta reliefs serve as visual dialogues between the past and present, exploring how mythology can be both a point of cultural anchoring and a space for reinterpretation. The tactile quality of terracotta, with its connection to the earth and history, mirrors the permanence and impermanence of migration, while my paintings blur the boundaries between myth and modernity.
S.K: Your use of clay reliefs is intriguing; it made me think of the earth as a metaphor for the mother motif around which narratives are woven. What are you exploring with the materiality of clay/terracotta? How does this compare to working with pigment?
S.G: I grew up in a place that is surrounded by temples with terracotta relief sculptures. I [was not able] to see any galleries and museums until very late in life when I moved to a larger city. My childhood place didn’t have any galleries or museums or access to good art books, but the area was [filled with] many terracotta temples. So, my first experience of seeing good art was the relief sculptures on those terracotta temples scattered around the Western region of West Bengal, India, such as Bankura (my hometown), Birbhum, Purulia, Bardhaman, Murshidabad etc. Bishnupur has the [largest] concentration of such temples with terracotta reliefs, which has been my biggest inspiration since childhood.
Clay and terracotta hold profound symbolic and material significance in my practice. The use of clay reliefs ties directly to the idea of the earth as a life-giving force – one that carries memory, history, and transformation. In many cultural traditions, including those of India, clay has been a medium of storytelling, from temple reliefs to ritual sculptures. Working with terracotta allows me to engage with this lineage while also shaping contemporary narratives of identity, migration, and belonging. The tactility and malleability of clay resonate with the themes I explore – the push and pull between rootedness and displacement, permanence and impermanence.
Pigment offers fluid storytelling, while terracotta embodies memory and presence more viscerally, making the narratives I tell not just visual but physical.
S.K: Why did you choose the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to anchor Myths to Mundane, where you re/think/, re/vision these epic tales through a contemporary lens? Are there specific stories or characters that resonate with you and that you want to disrupt?
S.G: I grew up with the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and these epics have always been more than just stories to me; they are cultural frameworks that shape moral, social, and philosophical thought. When I listen to a story, read a book, or listen to music, they leave a strong visual image in me. The Mahaprasthan/ Mahaprasthanika part of Mahabharata always [made me think] about how the Pandavas were walking towards their final destiny…the visuals were so profound I wanted to create a painting. Are they thinking of what happened during the Kurukshetra war or they are thinking of their next place/final place? Or are they just immersed in [this journey] of transition from one place to the [next], like all migrants, or the transition between life and death? What [were they] thinking? So many wars are still happening in today’s world. How would they reflect on that? All these questions led me to make the painting The Last Journey.
I don’t see these texts as fixed narratives. I see them as living entities that can be rethought and re-visioned to reflect contemporary realities. By placing these figures in new landscapes – both literal and metaphorical – I aim to question inherited narratives, highlight the tensions between tradition and modernity, and create a dialogue that speaks to our present complexities.
SK: Building on how mythology influences your lived experience, could you elaborate on the painting My Dupatta Is My Cape? How do your personal experiences shape your storytelling?
SG: In my teen years I was always trying to find answers to societal norms, dress codes, and expectations that were set for women and young girls. Growing up in a small town in India, when I started wearing salwar kameez, I was told to cover my newly formed breasts with a dupatta. I never understood why I needed to cover something already covered with the kameez! When I became a mother and bought a salwar kameez for my daughter, I never explained what the dupatta was for. One day, I saw her running with both arms stretched, wrapped around the dupatta, screaming in joy, ‘Ma, look, I am a bird!’ The other day, she was running like a superhero with the dupatta tied around her neck like a cape, and the next moment, I saw her playing hide and seek with her Dadu (grandpa) with the same dupatta. These moments were revelations of freedom and reinterpretation – an object once associated with restriction became a tool of limitless imagination.
When I was making this painting with three girls each gazing in three different directions, wearing the dupatta like a cape, I was thinking of the parallel to the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshwara (Shiva), symbolizing creation, preservation, and transformation. While the trinity in Hindu philosophy is traditionally male, this painting reimagines this powerful concept through the feminine form and reflects the evolving roles and identities of women across time, anchored in tradition yet moving forward into new possibilities. The juxtaposition of past and present, mythology and lived experience, will hopefully invite viewers to reconsider how these themes manifest in personal and collective journeys.
S.K: Migration is a central theme in your work. How do you navigate its complexities in your artistic practice, with your upbringing in India and current life in Seattle?
S.G: For me, migration is both a physical journey and an emotional, cultural, and psychological one. Having been raised in India and now living in Seattle, I am constantly moving between worlds – geographically, culturally, intellectually, and emotionally. This dual existence informs my artistic practice, shaping the narratives I construct in my paintings and terracotta reliefs.
I navigate the complexities of migration by embracing hybridity – blending visual motifs from India’s mythological and folk traditions with contemporary landscapes and lived experiences. My work explores the tension between rootedness and displacement, familiarity and alienation.
And when I work with terracotta reliefs, clay becomes a metaphor for migration, earth that is shaped, fired, and transformed, yet forever marked by its origins. It is fascinating that I get to work with the Panchabhutas – the five elements of life in Indian Philosophy. Earth (Prithvi), Water (Jala), Fire (Agni), Air (Vayu), and Space (Akasha). Each element plays a crucial role in the process of creating and transforming clay into relief sculptures.
S.K: What do you hope audiences will take away from your exhibition Myths to Mundane? What reactions or interpretations do you seek to provoke?
S.G: I want Myths to Mundane to encourage dialogue between past and present, between different cultures, and between personal and collective narratives. If the exhibition sparks curiosity, introspection, or even a re-examination of one’s relationship with history and identity, it has fulfilled its purpose. Even when people, places, experiences, or narratives, [whether] epics or personal are different across the globe and across time, in the end, they are all very similar stories of frustration, struggle, hope, faith, and love. I hope people experience that!
Myths to Mundane – March 6 – May 3, 2025, ARTS at King Street Station – 303 S. Jackson St., Top Floor, Seattle, WA 98104. Wed. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. and until 8 p.m. on First Thursdays. Admission is free.
Shruti will be an Artist in Residence at the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture during the show. For more about Shruti and her work, visit www.shrutighatak.com.
