Love Trade

The piece uncovers a love tangle between the Western goddess Demeter—frozen in eternal springtime—and Persephone—her restless daughter—who wanders away from the Motherland. Somewhere in No Man’s Land she encounters the Eastern god, Shiva—intense and mysterious—and is immediately attracted to his exotic ‘otherness.’

Persephone and Shiva hunger for connection, but Demeter, disguised as the Eastern goddess Dhumavati—the beholder of smoke—infects their meeting. They descend into the Underworld where they undergo the death of false dreams, as Persephone morphs into the Eastern goddess Kali—ruler of creation and destruction—and Shiva into Hades—king of the Underworld.

All three are finally released into their full humanity through the experience of love, and emerge from the depths transformed and transfigured.