Super Trees

22’ x 15’ x 4’

Wood, fabric, yarn, tang, steel, sunblock

2018

2018 Intern Artist

Artist Statement

I sat swinging from the banyan tree thinking about my mother. Her life and her stories. Romanticizing them like you do the hot pond breeze down by the river, a tiny tire swing, a push, a splash, a laugh. Tiny toes pushing into the gravel, a mind on a cold, cool glass of lemonade. The past that I had is closer to the latter, but the past that I seek, seek kinship with, is swinging there on the banyan tree. Tiny brown toes wrapped around tree roots,
tree roots,
rhizomes,
roots,
rhizomes.
The past that I want to hold late at night when I can’t sleep is warming its face through the gaps in the leaves. Hot Indian air making waves off it’s tiny tan nose. The past that I seek alludes me as it climbs higher and higher up the roots, the roots of the banyan tree.
Tree roots like rhizomes, rhizomes like tree roots.
Tiny brown toes wrapped around tree roots, tiny brown fingers holding fast as to not fall, the banyan’s limbs swaying gently in the hot air of a indian summer, but not the one that lasts too long. Beads of sweat push through the surface of tender brown skin, a smell of beauty and sambar saunter up little brown nostrils. I dig for these memories through the memories of my family, my roots. I dig, sweat brimming on the edges of a grey baseball hat.
One shovel,
One Stake,
One pair of yellow pants made for mothers who dance when they’re young,
One red cotton saree for fathers who never taught daughters how to drive stick,
One wrist wrap for brothers to box,
One pair of yellow pants made for mothers who don’t dance anymore.
Six diggings, holes, roots, souls
Divided by two is 3 plus one is Me.
And one grey baseball hat, held together by stitching
brimming with sweat,
from digging,
digging,
digging,
trying to reach the rhizomes,
I mean roots,
Tree roots,
the banyan tree pulling you up and out of the hole you’ve dug yourself in, tiny brown toes leaving the surface, the gravel, the mud. Up the roots those little brown fingers climb, up and up. They reach, extending, pushing, pulling, digging along the roots of the tree. At the top? a little bowl of turmeric, or is it Tang? Quick wrap it up so no one sees! There’s something special up there, and it’s between me and my roots.

Ila Rajkumar Krishnamoorthy

Born: New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

Resides: New York, NY, USA

Education

BFA, New York University, 2017