THE BINDI QUOTIENT
a visible system of care
Sumanma Wadhwa
2024 · hand-pulled 4-color lithograph on paper
limited edition of 20 · 11 × 17 in · signed and numbered
Artist Statement
Sumanma Wadhwa
This print began with my mother.
Every morning of my childhood, my mother placed a red bindi on her forehead. In that single gesture, my attention shifted from what she wore to who she was. The bindi was not decoration. It was focus, presence, and quiet power. It became the first design lesson I remember: a single mark can change where we look.
Years later, that dot became the seed of EMBRACE — a visual language for care, empathy, compassion, and emotional intelligence. The master symbol encodes E, I, and Q through nested forms. The inner circle holds the self. The bindi becomes the point of focus and shift. The open outer arc moves outward, from the self toward the collective. The system draws from Adinkra symbolism, Ardhanarishvara, Chinese coin structures, and the line rhythm of Madhubani Katchni painting. The work was exhibited as a multi-panel installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art.
The Making
Drawn digitally, transferred through transparency, exposed onto a metal plate, inked by hand, pulled through the press, and dried slowly between layers. The full exhibition process took close to three months — drawing, exposing, inking, pulling, drying, revising, across the entire body of work. Each color layer required days to settle. No two pulls are identical. The small shifts in ink, texture, and registration are not flaws — they are evidence of human touch.
Provenance
Originating from EMBRACE: The Journey to Empathy and Compassion — MFA thesis by Sumanma Wadhwa, Colorado State University, 2024, published via ProQuest.
Exhibited as a multi-panel installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art.
Part of the Beautiful Power Collection.
This work enters Beautiful Power as a visible object of care, power, and human touch. A buyer is not only buying an image — they are buying a hand-made fragment of a visual language for care.