From Boardrooms To Brushstrokes: Shivani Kohli On Finding Her Voice Through Art

The corporate world thrives on structure—defined roles, predictable promotions, and the steady hum of routine. But what happens when a lifelong passion, long relegated to the margins of cubicle doodles and lunch-break sketches, demands centre stage? For Shivani Kohli, the answer came in the form of a quiet nudge from an unlikely mentor: a senior executive who saw her desk cluttered with drawings and handed her a handmade sketchbook with a note that read, “You are too young to give up on your dreams.”

That moment unravelled a carefully built corporate career. Within weeks, she traded boardroom meetings for café corners, filling sketchbooks with no plan but to rediscover the artist within. “I didn’t even tell my family I’d quit,” she admits. “I’d leave home at my usual time, but instead of the office, I’d sit at a cafe and draw for hours.”

In an interview with SheThePeople, Shivani Kohli shares her leap from corporate life to mural art—and why trees, sketchbooks, and slow living inspire her work.

Growing up, she didn’t attend art school. “I never had that dedicated time to learn to draw like people do in art school. So that one year, I gave myself time. I didn’t know exactly where it was leading—but it felt right.” That decision eventually led her to a small agency, where she began illustrating children’s books. “One thing led to another,” she says, “and that’s how it all started.”

But her true leap happened in 2012. An architect friend designing a café, casually asked her: “You draw so much on paper—can you try it on a wall?” She hadn’t painted on a wall before, but agreed to give it a shot. That night, she painted until 4 a.m.

“It was love at first stroke,” she says, smiling. “With walls, there’s no rough draft. The wall is the final product. You don’t just casually experiment on a wall.”

That first wall turned into a full café. From there, the gigs kept coming. Soon, her work became a familiar sight in the once-budding art-scape of Delhi’s Hauz Khas Village. What began as an experiment led to a thriving career in murals, with projects spanning cafes, institutions like IIT Jodhpur, and digital illustrations.

Digital Avenue: The “ios upgrade” of her career

As her murals gained popularity, the digital shift began.

“Going digital changed the game for me. Suddenly, I could take my art and scale it, adapt it. Clients who couldn’t afford hand-painted murals could now get wallpapers based on my illustrations. I could work on packaging, branding—so many avenues opened up. It felt like an iOS upgrade for myself,” she laughs.

Despite the versatility of digital work, her heart still lies with two things: walls and sketchbooks.

“Walls make me feel alive. You can’t leave a wall incomplete. Once you start, you have to finish. There’s a kind of psychological pressure that works for me. And because a wall isn’t just personal—it’s public—it pushes me.”

On the flip side, sketchbooks are her sanctuary.

“My sketchbooks are my time capsules. They’re not about final pieces; they’re about process. I can be anything in them. And they’re mobile—I take them everywhere. I love flipping through old ones and seeing how I’ve grown.”

While her mediums evolved, one theme remained constant: nature. Whether it’s the leafy spreads in her sketchbooks or the elemental symbols in her mural at IIT Jodhpur, her work is rooted in the environment.

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“I’m definitely drawn to it. I’m someone who pays a lot of attention to what’s around me—and I find nature magical. I’m obsessed with trees. More than flowers, even. There’s such variety—just look at the greens in one tree. It’s mind-blowing. We’re always searching for magic, but it’s literally all around us. We just don’t pay attention,” she adds.

That sense of presence is something she tries to pass on through her art.

“Through my work, I want people to notice what they usually ignore. We're all constantly distracted, rushing through life. But sometimes, magic is in those simple, everyday visuals. If I can help someone slow down, even just for a second, I’ve done my job.”

For a long time, she worried her art wasn’t “deep enough.” That fear kept her from reaching out to galleries or sharing freely.

“I used to think: this isn’t conceptual enough, this isn’t gallery-worthy. But now I think—just create. That’s the first step. Art doesn’t have to be heavy to be meaningful. Simple things can be beautiful. Especially today, when we’re anxious and overwhelmed—what do therapists tell us? Pay attention. Breathe. Look around you.”

AI and the Artist: A Delicate Balance

However, the rise of AI-generated art evokes a quiet unease, not out of resistance to progress, but from a deeply personal understanding of what creation means. When the Studio Ghibli AI trend flooded social media, she found herself torn. “There was something profoundly sad about it,” she reflects. “Hayao Miyazaki spent decades honing his craft, infusing each frame with intention. To see his style reduced to an algorithm’s output—it made me wonder, What happens to the artist’s soul when their life’s work becomes a prompt?”

Yet, she resists outright dismissal and acknowledges AI’s potential as a tool—one that could streamline tedious tasks or spark ideas during creative blocks. “Imagine conjuring a colour palette in seconds, or testing compositions before lifting a brush,” she says. “That’s liberating.” But liberation, she insists, has a boundary: “Efficiency shouldn’t erase the sacredness of process.”

She urges young artists to wield AI as a collaborator, not a crutch: “AI can replicate a style, but can it feel the urgency of 4 AM inspiration? The frustration of a mural that won’t click until the 10th try?”

Though she's come a long way from those quiet mornings in cafés with a pencil and no plan, she says the journey is ongoing. “I’m still figuring things out. What I like keeps evolving. What I want to create keeps changing. And maybe that’s the best part.”

Her advice to budding artists is to draw daily, not for validation but for self-discovery. “Kids draw fearlessly; we unlearn that. Reclaim it. Art is never ‘bad’—it’s your voice.”