Artist In Residence: Tarini Sethi

“I always say there’s two kinds of artists – one who makes work for the present and shows what the world looks like right now, the other who shows what the future can look like. And with my work I’m trying to do the latter”, says Tarini Sethi. Based in New Delhi, Tarini’s work focuses on world building and explores themes like human intimacy, body-consciousness and sexuality, especially surrounding being a woman in India.

Permit Room (PR): Hi Tarini! Thanks so much for talking with us. To start, please can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?

Tarini Sethi (TS): My name is Tarini Sethi, I am a multimedia artist based in New Delhi. Like every artist I have sort of the cliched answer that I’ve been making art since I was a kid, but I’ve also been surrounded by art all my life. My father is a product designer and my mother works in craft, so the walls of our home have always been covered with some kind of art or the other. And for as long as I’ve known I’ve made art. I’ve always enjoyed doing it and it was something that I was actually good at in school.

Today, my practice focuses on a lot of different mediums – I work on metal sculptures, ink on paper, drawings and paintings, and in a way they all go back to the artform of drawing. Even my sculptures, I say they are very much an extension of my drawings. I very much see myself as a ‘drawer’, and while that might not be an actual word, it’s one I use to describe myself often.

PR: Your work explores a lot of different themes, a lot of which are relevant to the world we live in today. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

TS: My work very much talks about world building and futurism, but not only what our future worlds and utopias can look like but also how to go about building these future worlds. And it begins and ends with the idea of the body, and how bodies can be perfect vessels for exploration and emancipation. What you’ll notice in all my work is that there is very much a focus on the body and the idea that there is no one perfect body. I think we all have such different bodies for a reason. When I conjure up these future worlds, the bodies morph into more than what a human form looks like. They’re half-animal, half-human, half-man, half-child, and sometimes even half-human or half-automobile. And it’s this idea that there is so much harmony among humans and animals that they kind of grow into each other.

My work is also very much in response to the world we live in today. There’s a sense of urgency we’re all feeling right now and I want my work to inspire hope and offer promise. Because of what I’m trying to say with my work, I would say it’s based a lot on mythology and storytelling. My style is very surrealist because it’s not exploring the world we’re in right now, but an imagined world where everything is different, lovely and beautiful at the same time. And, as a woman from India where sex and nudity are such taboo subjects I try to also take a maximalist approach, making these topics as in-your-face as possible so there’s no hiding from them, you have to talk about them in some way or the other.

At the end of the day why do people make art – because it is a unifying language in many ways.

PR: How has, if it all, being South Asian/ Indian influenced your work?

TS: Oh, in so many ways! I’ve always spoken from the body, however, when I moved back to India from University I subconsciously focused on the body in every way I could. Because you can’t hide from the fact that you are a woman in India, that your body is sometimes not yours to begin with and often decisions made about your body, and for your body, are not yours to begin with either. As women, our body is our only weapon and I think that weapon is taken away from us in many ways. And so, I think because of that I’ve felt this need to talk about it and show people that it’s okay to express what you’re feeling within your body and about your body.

That said, I don’t think I’d be doing the same kind of work if I wasn’t living here because I’m constantly inspired just by being here. I think our country has so much to offer. I thrive in its chaos and you can see that in my work – there’s so much going on constantly.

PR: Can you tell us about your favourite piece?

TS: Honestly, I don’t think I have a favourite piece. Everytime I create a piece of work, I look back at it and think “Wow, how did I make that? That’s so good.” and when I start making something new I’m in this weird rut in the first week, thinking I’ve forgotten how to create and I always have to look back at the work before for inspiration. And so, I’d say my latest piece ‘Dispatches from Chaos’ is my favourite. This is also because it reminds me of XYZABC. It’s a metal piece that I’ve just shown in LA and shows the chaos of world building. It’s very chaotic. It’s very strange. You could say it’s violent but also beautiful and that’s what I love about it because I’m focusing on this idea that not everything is perfect.

PR: What is your favourite medium to work in and why?

TS: I love them all. And I’ll tell you why. If I’m making metal sculptures for a few months, I get so sick of it that I feel like I need to do something different and I love the fact that I’m able to. For eg, right now I love my paintings the most and that’s primarily because I haven’t done them in so long and I’m so done with making any kind of sculptures that I want to go back to painting. That said, for me, the process of painting is the most fun because it allows me to be as wild as possible.

My goal for 2025 is to bring my sculptures and paintings together as one. I love how sculptures have that 3D feel, they have shadow installations and it feels like you’re in that utopia and so I want to bring that wild feeling of creating from painting

be part of one because I love how the sculptures have that 3D feel, how they have those shadow installations within and it feels like you’re in that utopia and I’m trying to figure out a way to bring them both into one. Bring that wild feeling of creating while also have that 3D immersive feeling of the sculpture.

PR: Can you share with us what you’re currently working on?

TS: I’m starting to experiment with clay a bit more, as well as working on bringing all my mediums together as one.

PR: Finally, we’d love for you to share with us:

• A must-visit art fair: Art Mumbai and India Art Fair – there’s so much amazing stuff coming out of India and it’s all so exciting.
• A contemporary South Asian artist you love: Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran a.k.a the ‘Bad Boy of Ceramics’. He’s this amazing Sri Lankan ceramic artist. But also Rithika Merchant, Mithu Sen and Anju Dodiya.
• Your go-to podcast when you’re making work:— I only listen to Horror podcasts when I work, but don’t ask me why!