CITRA SASMITA

Rooted in the ancient Balinese creation myth of Bedawang Nala—the colossal turtle entwined with three dragons representing the earth, sea, and wind—Sasmita’s works reinterpret these sacred elements that represent the world’s equilibrium through a contemporary feminist lens. Their harmony ensures the earth’s stability, while their disturbance brings forth earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Through this mythology, Sasmita reflects on Bali—an island situated within the volatile ‘Ring of Fire’ - and the community’s abiding practices of coexistence with nature’s unpredictability. Rituals, storytelling and collective knowledge become acts of both reverence and survival, within which women emerge as crucial mediators and guardians. Central to rituals and ceremonies that worship the figure of Earth-Mother, a symbol of abundance and goodness, are Balinese women who serve as bearers of ancient wisdom and tradition in upholding the balance between humanity and nature. Through painting, installation and textile works, Sasmita evokes this intricate and divine web of feminine energy, spirituality and cosmic forces that sustain the balance of life.

Occupying the centre of the space is Tribe of Fire, an installation of three suspended cowhides, first presented at the Hawai‘i Triennial 2025. Encircling a central mound of charcoal, the hides bear painted female figures with leafy branches sprouting from heads, torsos and hands, illustrating an inseparable bond between human life and the natural realm. Brightly coloured beads adorn each cowhide, meticulously tracing the wrinkles and creases across the leather. These surface markings become records of memory and the passage of time, at once evoking topographical landscapes shaped by natural forces and registering intimate, bodily experience. Sasmita likens the cowhides to human bodies as vessels of memory, where folds, scars and stretch marks carry the imprints of ancestry, migration and lived history.

Alongside these works, Sasmita presents a new series of paintings, drawing from the visual language of traditional Kamasan painting from East Bali to reassert the female figure as a protagonist and decolonial voice. Mounted on ceremonial textiles and embellished with stone pearls, they reflect Sasmita’s view of fabric and painting as embodiments of “body and soul.” Informed by the cultural history of Balinese textiles as carriers of power, ritual and memory, these works channel an ecofeminist worldview in which nature and femininity emerge as interwoven forces of resistance and renewal.

Sasmita’s Women Who Carry the Mountain embodies the wisdom and sensitivity involved in nurturing this delicate balance between humanity and nature. In the face of an increasingly uncertain and hyperchanging world, the artist urges us to look towards the spiritual wisdom that can be found through seeking connection with nature again.

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