Interview with the artist.
Jai brings over three decades of artistic expertise to the table, blending traditional and digital techniques with cutting-edge AI technology. His unique and innovative approach infuses each piece with depth, emotion, and magic.
by Liberation Street writer, Jo Cora with Jai Sol, artist & founder.
QUESTION
Liberation Street is a collection of female subjects. How were you influenced by women when you were a child?
Jai: In the early part of my life I was surrounded by amazing, beautiful, courageous women who had so many layers and stories to tell, my mother in particular, because of her challenges she faced. Arriving into Heathrow at eleven with four of her brothers, no parents, a young Indian girl arriving from Kenya into a world where she knew nobody, a culture which was unknown. She had to endure a lot of challenges settling into a new community in the 80’s, including financial hardship and prejudice, but throughout that experience she maintained a strong sense of pride and dignity. My mother and her siblings kept hold of their traditions, their culture, and when she had a family of her own they were passed on to the second generation.
Growing up in an Indian community I felt the love of the women in my family. While the men went into work the women took care of the children and the household, they integrated into the community, even though it was hard. They had to become visible in the new world. As kids we wanted our mums, in their colourful saris, to look like all the other mothers at the school gates, we wanted them to blend in. We were caught between two cultures, we saw how hard it was to be seen. It was completely new for this entire race of Indian people to come to England, support themselves with jobs and homes, and integrate into the culture. But my mother comes from a lineage of women who have empowered themselves to know the value of community, of love for family, equality of exchange, so there was a deep strength in the psychology of these women, and they had an awareness that no matter what they were going through, it would pass if they continued to believe in what they knew.
"My mother comes from a lineage of women who have empowered themselves to know the value of community, of love for family, equality of exchange."
Your mother is an incredible woman. How did she influence you as you were growing up?
Jai: I knew from around the age of five that my mother was experiencing a tough life. She experienced emotional, physical and mental hardship, not least because she was in pain most of her adult life with arthritis. She is the bravest woman I know. She never let her pain affect us, and she has a huge strength of character, commanding a lot of respect and trust from the men in her family. My mother played a huge role in me being able to recognise similar qualities in other women.
As the children of immigrant parents we were often subjected to racism and prejudice. This was mainly from men, I felt that women seemed to empathise and understand that we were innocent children just the same as their children. The women in my family wanted to share experiences with other women, to integrate. My first experiences of women inspiring other women came from my mother, and she continues to inspire others for thirty-five years as a leader in her community, supporting people of Indian heritage in her town, in spite of the physical challenges of her illness.
"A lot of my art conveys the feminine principles of family and femininity."
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How did your mother feel about you becoming an artist?
Jai: Growing up I experienced a backlash from the men in my family when I chose to be an artist. Being a creative was not respected or acknowledged as a career path in the community, but my mother was fiercely protective of me and supported my decisions to follow my dreams and be creative, even when she did not understand my choices. She, and other women in my life, have always responded to my creativity, and from my very first artworks I have always created pieces themed around women. In fact, a lot of my art conveys the feminine principles of family and femininity. The experiences of women, and stories themed around feminine energy, have been an ongoing theme in my work.
"In moments of darkness or uncertainty... a woman and her spirit would always rescue me."
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What inspired you to create the Liberation Street collection?
The fantastic women in my life, from when I was young, to the friends and girlfriends I was fortunate to meet in my life, all of whom being very individual, empowered women, have guided my personality and creativity to achieve the sense of freedom that I have today. Creating Liberation Street has given me a wonderful opportunity to appreciate and understand the stories, victories and challenges of women like my mother. Women who truly know the feminine power that they possess; the ability to empower themselves.
I have always felt that the women in my life have been able to see the real me immediately without any need for me to communicate anything. For some reason they could sense the potential and creativity in me, they all were able to resonate with it. Many women I have met throughout my life have been incredibly sincere and honest in communicating something that they saw in me, which they also knew existed in them, and in moments of darkness or uncertainty, where a man would dismiss my ideas and imagination, a woman and her spirit would always rescue me. Through her guidance, her humour, her kindness and love I learned to see myself as they see me. In fact women played a huge role in my becoming visible to myself. It may have been a simple reflection from a friend or a relationship in which we both learned to understand ourselves, but every woman I know has given me a gift. Women truly played a huge role in my confidence and in my understanding of myself, that I could be whoever I wanted to be.
Creativity allowed me to see myself as a viable person in the world.
QUESTION
Were there times in your life when you did not feel visible?
Jai: I don’t sense that I’ve ever been truly visible in my life. My experience of visibility is more about how I see myself, or how I used to see myself for many years, as an insecure and anxious young person who initially was full of charisma, personality, motivation and creativity. I went from being that young child to a teenager who sensed a huge loss and detachment from everything. And creativity became my only form of language or experience that allowed me to see myself as a viable person in the world.
As a young child I believed in life and love and creativity, but for some reason I was told that I could not continue to be this type of person as I grew up. My family and community did not value self-expression through art, drama, music or anything else and I was told I would have to conform to ideas and rules and a framework that did not allow me to be who I was. To choose myself was to risk rejection and I knew I would not be accepted as a person of value. So, I had to become invisible in a sense, for them to see me and accept me.
"My fears of being seen were the results of the conditioning around me."
QUESTION
What did you do to become invisible?
Jai: I hid the artist in me for over twenty-four years. But then on New Years Eve in 1999 I decided to kill off the old version of me. I changed my name, burnt my possessions and in fact I even gave myself a funeral on that day. I recognised that I no longer needed to be seen by them through their limited perspective, but I was determined that I would be completely visible to myself. Something in my consciousness told me that if I could build a relationship with myself that one day I would influence and inspire the world because of the incredible amount of creativity in my spirit.
And so from that day I, and for the next sixteen years, I spent my time in one room, where I did not move until I knew every aspect of my personality, character, curiosity and the limitations of my conditioning. That was the moment where I understood that my fears of being seen were the results of the conditioning around me, and a new version of myself started to appear, like a dragonfly emerging from the water to start life again on the land and eventually finding it has wings to fly.
The person I was always meant to be was always there. That was when I became visible to myself and to the world. I knew that I had to curate my reality, write a new script of my life, create art without rules, and never conform to a belief system. In essence I knew I had to truly connect with my spirit.
"Eventually I became lost in a world of love and wonder, and that is when I knew I was in the right place."
You went through a complete transformation. I imagine there were some challenges?
Jai: In those early days it was like walking through hell, because the outside world had no connection to my internal world. All I experienced was conflict and pain, and I became extremely detached from everyone. But as I became more invisible to my family and those around me I become more aware of myself, and I started to see life from a bigger perspective, almost as if I was detached from reality and watching everyone’s actions from a distance, and through that I developed a new form of self-awareness. As my consciousness expanded I became more aware of my creativity and intelligence, of nature and of human nature. Every day I was creating art and stories and ideas, and eventually I became lost in a world of love and wonder, and that is when I knew I was in the right place. In all my artistic creations I could see the world and I could see myself. My only question was, would the world see me.
"When I see another human being, I see art, and I see their visibility, their energy."
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After doing so much work on yourself has your art become more conscious?
Jai: For the last ten years I have expressed myself entirely through my art, through my relationships with people, and through my contributions. Now it is an absolute pleasure to be visible to myself. By knowing myself and expressing every element of my consciousness I also feel that when I see another human being, I see art, and I see their visibility, their energy. That is who I am today.
With my art I aim to draw attention to things that are difficult to visualise. It is my duty. To contribute to the world outside of me. If I can create perspectives with my art that draw awareness to the limitations of society, the structures and systems that lead to conditioning, then my hope is that people can see themselves with more clarity. I want people to know that they can be visible, and that they might be afraid to be seen for who they are, but that we all need to share our true inspirational selves; the world needs to see us as we are.
Learn More About Jai's experiences prior to his creation of Liberation Street.
QUESTION
Throughout your career you have created art which conveys a woman’s perspective. Why do you think that is?
One of the most important experiences of my life, which I believe transformed my perception of myself as a British man, and as a human really, was when I travelled to India in 2011. I went to volunteer as a teacher at an orphanage and school for girls at Vrindavan, in North India. I went with my partner at that time, I was at big shot artist living in Chelsea, London and she a world famous international dancer from Hollywood, and between us we taught the girls classical art and dance.
I had been visiting India for four years, travelling across the country, looking for any opportunity to teach art in schools and places of learning. I wanted to understand the people, and I visited some of the most rural and traditional communities of India. After getting to know the struggles and the experiences of the children my intention was to set up a foundation where I would create an income for the children and their families by helping them create art which could be sold to buyers in Europe. I called this foundation The Real Devine. I wanted to empower both the children and the viewer of the art with the many stories and experiences of these underprivileged children.
What I didn’t expect from my four months teaching in the orphanage for girls was how much the experience would change my life. Vrindavan is a town near Delhi and is the homeland of the Hindu God Krishna. It is home to many people in poverty and 30% of women and girls are illiterate. Our intention was to make some sort of difference by communicating our experience and creativity but we were shocked by the economic challenges faced by the children and their community. Children who had no parents, girls looking after babies, living on the side of the road with no resources, existing in one set of clothes. The school was a lifeline for them and provided a basic education, which meant they avoided the dangers of a child marriage, but they had so many daily challenges. Although we did achieve those goals to inspire the children, the true value of the experience was in the incredibly beautiful, authentic and loving hearts of these young girls, who had all the challenges you can imagine, and yet they had this belief that they could accomplish anything purely because of their faith in God. They recognised that they came from a lineage of women who, for thousands of years, have overcome circumstances that are unimaginable.
For me, personally, being around these children truly gave me an insight into consciousness and how to live in the heart. These children and young women treated me with so much respect and love that I had to reciprocate, and their reactions to me impacted my perception of myself. I then understood the potential of women when they are given the freedom, and the encouragement, and the space to excel, to establish themselves, and to collaborate with men and the world. They gave me a gift, it was more than I could ever give them. I had travelled through the most poverty-stricken areas of India, for reasons that were in part both selfish and honest, as I wanted to alleviate my own personal challenges at the time. The experience I gained from working with those girls has inspired me to communicate their lives in my artworks, and hopefully the art inspires both men and women today.
Learn more about this journey in upcoming blogs......
QUESTION
Liberation Street is a collection of one hundred years of female visibility. What is your experience of women’s visibility in 2024?
Almost every single artwork I’ve ever created has featured a woman, or some form of feminine idea or principle. Communicating their story, articulating their emotion and expressing a perspective that encourages the viewer to see things differently.
A lot of the women that featured in my early days were women that were visible to me in my family setting. And then I drew inspiration from historic characters and individuals who inspired change and impacted the world through their actions, through their humility, and through their conscious desire to seek authenticity for themselves. Only in recent years have I looked outside of my own imagination and my sphere of knowledge at life, events and stories that relate to women that are currently in the world. Culture, life, politics, working practices, education, family expectations, all these different parts that make up society have either prevented women from being visible to the world, or have demanded it.
We are all given more opportunities to be seen now. We have devices that can document our every move, our lifestyle, our thoughts, our ideas, and we can get instant feedback from the world. What I sense is that women now have the opportunity to show themselves in any which way they want, how they want, when they want and they have complete control of the narrative that they present. Which is an incredible opportunity, for the world to see them as they are, and judge them for what they do, and appreciate them for the people that they are. But on the flipside the applications, the engineers, the sponsors and owners of these platforms also have their own ideology and agendas, and they reward specific types of behaviour and content. So I see that women have the opportunity to be incredibly visible, and due to this visibility online they’re able to create opportunities for themselves, to become more free and have choice in the world, but ironically media encourages a steriotypical view of women that possibly incentivises them to curate themselves in certain ways.
They are also rewarded and encouraged to attain elements of the world, such as material goods, experiences, credibility that possibly they were not given access to prior to the social media revolution. But at the same time they may be losing some of the fundamental qualities they possess as women in terms of their ability to create life, to contribute to society. Women are more easily seen and are given platforms to project their qualities but what they do on those platforms I’m not sure is a progression or evolution, because it is largely men that own and control those platforms. So in effect, although the women today might be in the world and fully owning their place on the outside of their door, it is still the men who have ownership of the street.
I expect that in the future if women were able to control the narrative and own the platforms and have some say in how men are also being perceived, there will be a change of some sort and there could be some progress in the way both men and women understand and treat each other as equals.
"Women now have the opportunity to show themselves in any which way they want, how they want, when they want."
QUESTION