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| Hindu Goddess Chinnamasta |
Chinnamasta, 2007, 12 x 12 inches (NFS)
So this image probably seems pretty intense and it is. If you read the except below you will
understand the imagery more throughly. I read about this particular Hindu goddess and thought
she was so cool that I needed to do something which incorporated her in my art work. I also
found this picture done during the Victorian era of this young girl. I thought that it would be
interesting if she had cut off her head like the goddess and was holding it in her hand. The
reason that I chose embroidery for the execution of this piece is because first of all it was a
predominate art form in the Victorian era, same as the girl. The other is the seeming opposition
between the subject matter and the medium of embroidery.
The image of Chinnamasta is a composite one, conveying reality as an amalgamation of sex,
death, creation, destruction and regeneration. It is stunning representation of the fact that life,
sex, and death are an intrinsic part of the grand unified scheme that makes up the manifested
universe. The stark contrasts in this iconographic scenario-the gruesome decapitation, the
copulating couple, the drinking of fresh blood, all arranged in a delicate, harmonious pattern -
jolt the viewer into an awareness of the truths that life feeds on death, is nourished by death,
and necessitates death and that the ultimate destiny of sex is to perpetuate more life, which in
turn will decay and die in order to feed more life. As arranged in most renditions of the icon, the
lotus and the pairing couple appear to channel a powerful life force into the goddess. The
couple enjoying sex convey an insistent, vital urge to the goddess; they seem to pump her with
energy. And at the top, like an overflowing fountain, her blood spurts from her severed neck,
the life force leaving her, but streaming into the mouths of her devotees (and into her own
mouth as well) to nourish and sustain them. The cycle is starkly portrayed: life (the couple
making love), death (the decapitated goddess), and nourishment (the flanking yoginis drinking
her blood).
Hindu Goddesses:Visine of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Reigious Tradition (ISBN
81-208-0379-5) by David Kinsley
So this image probably seems pretty intense and it is. If you read the except below you will
understand the imagery more throughly. I read about this particular Hindu goddess and thought
she was so cool that I needed to do something which incorporated her in my art work. I also
found this picture done during the Victorian era of this young girl. I thought that it would be
interesting if she had cut off her head like the goddess and was holding it in her hand. The
reason that I chose embroidery for the execution of this piece is because first of all it was a
predominate art form in the Victorian era, same as the girl. The other is the seeming opposition
between the subject matter and the medium of embroidery.
The image of Chinnamasta is a composite one, conveying reality as an amalgamation of sex,
death, creation, destruction and regeneration. It is stunning representation of the fact that life,
sex, and death are an intrinsic part of the grand unified scheme that makes up the manifested
universe. The stark contrasts in this iconographic scenario-the gruesome decapitation, the
copulating couple, the drinking of fresh blood, all arranged in a delicate, harmonious pattern -
jolt the viewer into an awareness of the truths that life feeds on death, is nourished by death,
and necessitates death and that the ultimate destiny of sex is to perpetuate more life, which in
turn will decay and die in order to feed more life. As arranged in most renditions of the icon, the
lotus and the pairing couple appear to channel a powerful life force into the goddess. The
couple enjoying sex convey an insistent, vital urge to the goddess; they seem to pump her with
energy. And at the top, like an overflowing fountain, her blood spurts from her severed neck,
the life force leaving her, but streaming into the mouths of her devotees (and into her own
mouth as well) to nourish and sustain them. The cycle is starkly portrayed: life (the couple
making love), death (the decapitated goddess), and nourishment (the flanking yoginis drinking
her blood).
Hindu Goddesses:Visine of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Reigious Tradition (ISBN
81-208-0379-5) by David Kinsley
