Yoni series

Abstract

I am Komal Madar, a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture, and performance. My obsessive need to ‘make’ begins with seeking out discarded and humble materials. I am guided by the philosophy of kismat—fate and chance encounters—connecting me to people and places as I hunt for materials. The thrill of the in-between stages of making and the possibilities these encounters spark have become the fulcrum of my process. The Yoni series (2020–2024) consists of 42 sculptural works created using discarded textile off-cuts as a vehicle to explore feminist discourses and their intersections with ancient Indian language and culture. Specifically, I draw from the Sanskrit word yoni—meaning "womb," "vulva," or "source"—and its symbolic representations. Through processes of layering, slashing, blowing, pulling, stretching, and ripping, I challenge traditional expectations of textiles, unravelling entangled concerns and generating fresh narratives around gender, patriarchal structures, and sexual taboos. Performance has played a key role in documenting the making of the Yoni sculptures, which I shared on Instagram. In 2023, one of my reels reached 8.1 million views, leading to an editorial feature in Vogue India (Nov–Dec 2023), where I was selected as one of five emerging female artists shaping a progressive art landscape.