A new group of photo images I call the Mandala series will be shown for the first time ever at the Art Elements Gallery in downtown Newberg beginning Thursday August 26. The free-wine opening is Thursday evening from 5 to 7.
Frankly, I'm a little nervous about reaction to the works as they obviously do not look like traditional photographs. I'm putting it out there.
This Mandala–a Sanskrit word meaning circle–series is inspired by the meditation art in the Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions I first encountered while traveling in the Himalayas in 1976. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the shape of a T.
While the Buddhist and Hindu mandalas have spiritual and ritual significance, as a grasshopper-like novice, I simply tried to work on a theme and chose images in a synergistic way. They became like meditations while doing them.
In various spiritual traditions, mandalas are employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, as a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation trance induction. According to David Fontana, its symbolic nature can help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises." The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as "a representation of the unconscious self," and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.
I'm excited about where this Mandala series might go with future work. Naturally, I would appreciate any feedback. Come to the show.
Tamarah, my digital asset manager delivering the new Mandala work to Art Elements Gallery.Oh yes, Gallery address:
604 East 1st Street (The main drag going north)
Newberg, OR 97132
(503) 487-6141
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