In current times, where religion is doubted and questioned, Kapila is an artist who believes and invests in personal faith in a secular and cosmopolitan context. Her works are an evolution from her earlier practice of spontaneous drawing and application of colour to her layered canvases that are often loaded with signs, symbols, and calligraphy, subjectively involved in memory and loss, conflict and change, and the eternal hope from seeking and investing in acts of constant repetition of the sacred word, a mantra like a riyaaz.
The new set of works is layered like a palimpsest of flower petals, talismans, sacred wrappings of fabric that contain the energy of sculpture, and icons of faith. Traditionally, icons are wrapped and arranged. This imagery comes from her everyday reality of investing in faith, rituals, and the act of visarjan - ritual immersion of icons that dissolve and resurrect in a cycle of the festival seasons. The quest to search for the spiritual in the material is eternal, and the artist invests in the material as a metaphor for hope that nurtures herself through her practice.
