Kseniia Nel’s mythical cat series continues with The Bindi Cats. Her painting depicts cats covered in the most magnificent patterns of dark teal, lighter blue, light grey, charcoal grey and silver. She has also painted a crescent moon, stars, a silver-spangled sky and part of a mandala. The background is a dark grey with spatterings of silver that look like crushed stardust. We have added a dark grey section and silver rings.

Kseniia often finds that her painting is a time of inner peace and meditation, and what arises on the artwork emerges from her subconscious. In her fine art studies she covered folk art and religious icons, hence it is no surprise that some of these motifs find their way into her art. She likes to leave it up to the viewer to experience their own interpretation of what her painting evokes, and in the case of this pen, I found myself focusing on the bindis that two of these cats have on their foreheads … and then went down a rabbit hole to find out more.

The bindi is an important motif in many cultures, and in the Hindu religion it represents the third eye or anja chakra, reminding wearers that while we have two eyes that look outward, the anja chakra looks inward toward wisdom and the ability to see things as they truly are, without being biased by one’s ego or external distractions. The bindi can also be seen as the centre of the mandala and hence also symbolic of the centre of the universe. You may see something completely different when you view this pen, and that’s exactly what Kseniia invites you to do.

Each of our hand-painted fountain pens is a 1/1 original work of art. No-one else will ever own an identical pen.