When senior Sasha Khetarpal-Vasser reaches into all of the corners of his mind, he reaches further back than the comprehensible limits towards the Hindu goddess of simultaneous destruction and chaos, and brings her here to fuse her ancient image with the Western one.
“A lot of my art is particularly inspired by the goddess Kali. I find her really fascinating right now in my life,” said Khetarpal-Vasser. “She’s the goddess of death and destruction and of life and creation. She has this aesthetic that’s very dark, taboo, animalistic.”
Khetarpal-Vasser portrays the goddess sometimes as an identifiable female and other times as wave of free flowing colors.
“I find that a lot of my art has to do with chaos,” said Khetarpal-Vasser. “Much of our culture is about control and so much of who we are is controlled, versus this goddess who basks in nothing but chaos. It’s that kind of weird contradiction.”
Inspired by his Indian roots, Khetarpal-Vasser plans to take a trip to northern India this winter. He plans to visit a particularly famous shrine to Kali located in a cave embedded in the Himalayan Mountains that contains nothing but three large stones, each one symbolizing an aspect of Kali.
“I’ve wanted to go there since I was a child. It’s not so much like there’s any type of miracle or anything like that. It’s more like you’re doing it for the whole ambiance of it,” Khetarpal-Vasser said. “You’re doing it for the whole trek up towards the temple because then you hear all of these people screaming to the goddess, cheering, playing drums and you can really feel that very ancient energy of what tribal goddess worship was actually like.”
Art acts as the medium through which Khetarpal-Vasser explores his personal spirituality, thus opening his eyes to the world and growing.
“It’s a lot of inner sacrifice. In Hinduism, one of the names of the goddesses is Mahamaya, which literally translates to ‘the great illusion,’” said Khetarpal-Vasser. “She doesn’t just demand your sacrifice. She wants you to open your eyes. She wants you to see reality as it is, not this illusion of superficiality, pure ego and hunger for power.”
Khetarpal-Vasser excels not only in painting, but also in drawing, jewelry making, ceramics and printmaking.
Currently, he is pursuing tribal fusion dancing with the Black Butterfly Dance Company, which was created by him and his aunt four years ago. Through this form of art, Khetarpal-Vasser embodies Kali’s spirit through movement.
“You’re wearing 17 pounds of silver. How do you not feel like a goddess,” he said jokingly.
Donna Sartanowicz, Khetarpal-Vasser’s current Advanced Drawing & Painting and AP Art Studio teacher, watched him develop a personal relationship with his artwork.
“Sasha is a wonderfully open artist,” said Sartanowicz. “He is someone who embraces life. He’s made, in the last year or so, such a strong connection to the spiritual side of his life.
For Khetarpal-Vasser, art is more than painting and canvasses displayed on walls. It is more than pens and pencils and papers smudged with charcoal or newly wet prints lying to dry in the darkroom.
It is life.
“I think that every conversation, every word, they’re all pieces of art,” said Khetarpal-Vasser. “It’s like you’re creating this image and this idea of who you are and the world around you and who you want to be from the way you dress and the way people see you. It’s all an artistic expression of what you want other people to see as your emotional being or your emotional body. I think it affects everyone, but I don’t think people get how much it does affect people.”
Anna Parkhurst can be contacted at [email protected]
