Manik Raj Nakra’s Kali Moths are fantastical hybrid beings born from the fusion of two powerful mythologies: the Hindu goddess Kali Ma and the mythos of moths as "angels of death" by cultures throughout history. These creatures explore themes of ritual, ceremony, transformation, mortality, and our spiritual relationship with nature.

Moths have appeared throughout human history in art, folklore, and sacred traditions, symbolizing change, death, and rebirth. Often regarded as returning ancestral spirits, their presence resonates across cultures as omens and messengers from beyond. Similarly, Kali Ma, the Hindu goddess of death, time, and transformation, is revered as both destroyer and creator, an embodiment of the Divine Mother. Traditionally depicted with black or blue skin, fangs, a lolling tongue, four arms, and a garland of human heads, Kali represents the cosmic darkness from which all life emerges. In one of her most iconic myths, she defeats a demon who multiplies with every drop of spilled blood by catching the blood on her tongue in a vivid symbol of unstoppable, divine power.

In Nakra’s work, Kali Ma becomes a personified Mother Nature: fierce, loving, worshipped, and feared. Her image is rooted in mythology but echoed in western pop culture, such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the singer Madonna, fashion, DC comic books, tattoos and serves as both inspiration and provocation. In these works, the moth does not merely accompany Kali, the moth becomes her.

They are drawn not to fire, but to the darkness Kali rules: a generative void, the primordial chaos from which all life begins and ends. Each moth pulses with the energy of ceremony and metamorphosis, suspended between this world and the next.

The Kali Moths are brought to life through assemblages of watercolor drawings on handmade paper, adorned with woodblock-printed symbols and ceremonial motifs meticulously carved by the artist. The collaged compositions draw influence from centuries old Persian and Indian manuscripts, South Asian woodblock printing traditions, early Western xerox-era punk zines, and the DIY aesthetic of neo-dadaist assemblage artists such as Ray Johnson and Robert Rauschenberg. This fusion reflects Nakra’s perspective as a first-generation Indian American, weaving together heritage and subculture, history and invention.