We are delighted to announce Mohini Kaur as OmVed Gardens' Artist of the Month for November. Kaur is a London-based artist working across painting, installation, sculpture and photography. Her work explores how transcendence is felt and resisted in the body within a framework she calls The Long Ancestral Body, situating the self within an ecological and ancestral continuum.
"The framework behind my practice, The Long Ancestral Body, grows from a sense that no life stands alone. Each of us is made from the people who came before, and from the soil and seasons that kept them alive, and that continuum moves through us into lives we will never see.
It moves in cycles, and my Kali paintings follow them. Kali is the Goddess of dissolution and transformation, and her name holds the Hindi word kal, which means both yesterday and tomorrow. I find this beautiful. So when I paint her force, I make these paintings aware that they won’t last. Over the years they will break down and return to the earth, and letting them do so is a way of letting the work belong to time.
That return feels natural because some of what I paint with was once part of the earth. Sand, ash, turmeric, sesame oil and kumkum, the red powder offered in worship, all find their way onto my canvases carrying long histories of use. Once there, they keep a life of their own, drying and shifting in ways I can guide but never quite decide.
Lately my photography has turned towards the same ground, through a series about people and their relationship to rest and to nature, the places they go to be still and what those places give back to them.
Across all of it, I’m looking for the moments when a body remembers it is part of the earth’s long breath, and the work is my way of staying close to this knowing"
In line with OmVed Gardens' 2026 theme, Listening as Care, Kaur’s practice is an act of attentive listening: to the materials she works with, to the bodies and landscapes that hold memory, and to the rhythms of time. This comes together in The Barn as an exhibition titled ‘On Becoming A Travelling Altar’, running from 8 November to 3 December. Alongside painting, drapes and sculpture, the exhibition includes ‘Kali’ (2026), a new soundscape co-produced with Gaya Tideman. Voiced by Kaur and shaped by her own interpretations of chants to Kali, the piece asks for a slow, bodily kind of listening, the kind that lets a visitor feel curious about something older than themselves. Across her work, care takes the form of humility and patience.
How to visit
There are four more chances to see the exhibition this month, each with its own event. Booking is essential. Please note the exhibition is in the Barn only, and the rest of the gardens may be closed.
Saturday 14 November, 11am–1pm
Workshop: Making Through The Body
Slow down and make through the body in a guided session combining body awareness and play. Taking cues from the garden and the ideas behind the exhibition, you’ll work together across one long shared roll of paper. No experience needed.
Book here
Tuesday 17 November, 2pm–7pm
Live soundscape, 5:30pm
Sound artist Somatic and sitarist Tommy Khosla reimagine Kali live among the works. Settle in for a 90-minute meditative listening session and let the sound hold you.
Book here
Wednesday 25 November, 12pm–6pm
Curator talk, 5pm
Helen Zhang shares the thinking behind the exhibition, drawing on her ongoing work with the artist and the choices that shaped the show.
Book here
Friday 27 November, 12pm–7pm
Artist walkthrough, 5:30pm
Walk through the exhibition with Mohini Kaur as she opens up The Long Ancestral Body, the framework behind her practice, and how the works speak to one another.
Book here
Kaur holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art and a BA in French and Philosophy from King’s College London. You can see more of her work on her website: www.studiomohini.com