Video projection of performance on a wall sized drawing with sumi ink, pastels, acrylic, tempera and charcoal
Moved by my experience at buddhist monastery in S. Korea, I wanted to capture what it feels like to try and meditate. The sound was recorded during morning gong call to prayer. The purpose of any sound whether it is the breath or the bell or the gong is to try and recenter and refocus. Using a time displacement filter on the video helped me express the sound reverb that is experienced in the mind. This work is very much about the mental landscape in the act of meditation.
Sunyata is the Buddhist concept of “emptiness”. Most often it is confused with the void or non-existence of matter. Sunyata actually addresses interconnectivity and eternity in Buddhist philosophy. His holiness the Dalai Lama refers to Sunyata as “the knowledge of the ultimate reality of all objects, material and phenomenal”. This concept acknowledges that the present state of all things is a result of its previous state and can be traced back to eternity. There is no beginning or end. Our time on earth is a brief interlude in a continuum. This artwork is my own search for meaning within this transience using a limited vocabulary.
Documentation of solo show consisting of 3 video installations- ReCollect, Trace and Negotiate. ReCollected is a video projection of videos from travel and a sewing performance. Trace is a video projection of shadows on a translucent fabric quilt of prints (monotypes and photo polymer prints. Negotiate is a video projection of performance and drawing animation on three sheets of plexiglass and scattered sand.
Webster’s dictionary defines archetype as: “the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies: prototype; a perfect example.” It also defines archetype as “an inherited idea or mode of thought in the psychology of C. G. Jung that is derived from the experience of the race and is present in the unconscious of the individual” In this work, I have brought these two ideas together. No matter what culture and gender we belong to, cultural archetypes are embedded in our psyche. We unconsciously aspire to fit into these molds that are predetermined for us. I appropriated formulas of human proportions from an ancient sculptural treatise called the “Shipa Shastra” in order to create this work. I question these archetypes that drive our search for a perfection that does not exist. The audience is invited to compare themselves to these archetypes through casting shadows on the grid.
