T&T-born In­dra Per­sad Milowe, an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed artist, has chan­nelled her cre­ative en­er­gy in­to Jharokha, art­work com­mon­ly fea­tured in clas­si­cal In­di­an ar­chi­tec­ture that is dis­played in ac­tu­al or dec­o­ra­tive win­dows.

Her piece ti­tled “Cel­e­bra­tion” re­flects jharokha’s cur­rent use of be­ing ar­tis­ti­cal­ly adorned for var­i­ous cel­e­bra­tions, hol­i­days and fes­ti­vals. The art­work is needle­work on burlap, us­ing mul­ti­coloured thread and it is adorned with bells and as­sort­ed mir­rors.

Milowe ex­plained, “A Jharokha is sup­port­ed on two or more brack­ets and has two pil­lars and a cupo­la or pyra­mi­dal roof. It is closed by a jali (per­fo­rat­ed screen) but gen­er­al­ly part­ly open for the res­i­dents to peep out to see pass­ing pro­ces­sions.

“Jharokha dar­shan was a dai­ly prac­tice of ad­dress­ing the pub­lic au­di­ence (dar­shan) at the bal­cony Jharokha at the forts and palaces of me­dieval kings in In­dia. It was an es­sen­tial and di­rect way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing face-to-face with the pub­lic and was a prac­tice which was adopt­ed by the Mughal em­per­ors. Em­per­or Hu­mayun adopt­ed this Hin­du prac­tice of ap­pear­ing be­fore his sub­jects at the Jharokha to hear their pub­lic griev­ances. The bal­cony ap­pear­ance in the name of Jharokha dar­shan was con­tin­ued by his son, the 16th-cen­tu­ry Mughal Em­per­or Ak­bar.”

Jharokhas have since been trans­formed in­to in­te­ri­or dec­o­ra­tive win­dows that adorn the walls of many homes. Gen­er­al­ly made of wood, they can fea­ture elab­o­rate artis­tic carv­ings and come in dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes.

“Jharokhas can be adorned with mir­rors, can­dles or diyas, pho­tographs or oth­er art­work. They act as frames to en­hance the beau­ty of homes or oth­er build­ings,” she not­ed.

Milowe, who is ac­cred­it­ed by the UN­OFEX (Union of Ex­cel­lence), has a pas­sion for art that has de­fined her path and cap­ti­vat­ed au­di­ences glob­al­ly. Her work re­flects her rich cul­tur­al her­itage and the vi­brant sto­ries of T&T.

Her artis­tic jour­ney be­gan in her youth, nur­tured by the en­cour­age­ment of her high school art teacher, Hel­ga Mo­hammed, a na­tive of Madrid mar­ried to a Trinida­di­an, who left an in­deli­ble mark on Milowe’s artis­tic per­spec­tive.

De­spite her pas­sion for art, Milowe’s ca­reer took a dif­fer­ent path. She pur­sued nurs­ing, a pro­fes­sion that took her across con­ti­nents to work in Eng­land, Mal­ta, and the Unit­ed States, gain­ing di­verse ex­pe­ri­ences through British Nurs­es Over­seas. Her ded­i­ca­tion to nurs­ing spanned gen­er­al, oph­thalmic, and psy­chi­atric spe­cial­i­ties, with a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of her ca­reer de­vot­ed to adult psy­chi­atric med­i­cine.

In April 2019, af­ter decades of ser­vice in the med­ical field, Milowe re­tired and em­braced her life­long dream of re­turn­ing to art.

Milowe’s art­work is deeply per­son­al, each piece telling a sto­ry from her life or the folk­lore of T&T. She metic­u­lous­ly plans her projects. With pen­cils and a sketch­pad al­ways at hand, she cap­tures these vi­sions, trans­lat­ing them in­to vi­brant acrylic paint­ings on can­vas.

Her work has gained in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, lead­ing to nu­mer­ous ex­hi­bi­tions. Her trav­els have sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­flu­enced her art, as seen in her col­lec­tions like Beau­ti­ful Ubud, Bali and My Jour­ney to Mo­roc­co.

Her time as an artist-in-res­i­dence in Ubud, al­lowed her to im­merse her­self in lo­cal tra­di­tions, at­tend­ing fes­ti­vals and cer­e­monies that en­riched her artis­tic reper­toire.

In ad­di­tion to her ex­hi­bi­tions, Milowe’s con­tri­bu­tions to the Ro­tun­da Gallery in the Red House, Port-of-Spain, and Art Im­pact In­ter­na­tion­al in Wash­ing­ton, DC, show­case her com­mit­ment to shar­ing her cul­ture and sto­ries with the world. Her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Sin­ga­pore In­ter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val of Arts (SIFA 2023) fur­ther high­light­ed her glob­al pres­ence.

Milowe’s re­cent res­i­den­cy at Mauser Eco House in Cos­ta Ri­ca cul­mi­nat­ed in the cre­ation of a 6x6-foot mur­al ti­tled Lutch­mie and the do­na­tion of a paint­ing to a lo­cal restau­rant. Her work in Salem, MA, where she paint­ed mu­rals and pub­lic art ex­hi­bi­tions, earned her recog­ni­tion and two grants from the Pub­lic Art Com­mis­sion.

Through her art, Milowe not on­ly tells her own sto­ry but al­so brings the vi­brant folk­lore and fes­ti­vals of T&T to life, con­nect­ing with au­di­ences world­wide.