Meditations on meditation and meditative abstracts
Featuring works by: Lucy Mcloughlin, Kath Fries, Hui Yun, Long Yinghan, Lynx Ng, Carlos Lorenzana and Kristina Mah
Arranged by: T. Shuxia
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term meditate as “1: to engage in contemplation or reflection, 2: to engage in mental exercise … for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness.”
The selection of artworks in this section are thus a combination of these two definitions. They are about meditation as a form of mental exercise and meditation as a reflection on a concept, idea or thought. For some of the works, they are an amalgamation of both. Whether these artworks are illustrative/figurative or abstract, they are all an expression of contemplation.
While there are many meditation techniques in the Buddhist traditions (and you will find mentions of visualisation and compassion techniques in the artists’ statements), a running theme through most of the artworks is mindfulness. The blending of mindfulness and art is probably most easily depicted here in Hui Yun’s zentangle, “The Art of Peace”. Zentangle is a method of drawing patterns that is meant to be easy, relaxing and encourages focus. One can be very immersed when drawing zentangles and the premise of the method is that anyone can make one. (You don’t have to be good at art to draw zentangles.)
Other than Lucy Mcloughlin’s artworks which are illustrations (that I have interpreted to be the artist’s visualisations), the rest of the works here including paintings (2D and digital), a sculpture and a light installation are by and large abstract. Abstract art is generally the pulling away from the literal and representational. This means that artworks may have simplified forms, shapes and colours, and they depart from visual references in the real world. I find it interesting to think that perhaps there is a relation between abstraction and spirituality. How can art be used to express the intangible- emotions (Long Yinghan), consciousness (Carlos Lorenzana), our inner world (Kristina Mah), meditation (Kath Fries) and Life (Lynx Ng)? These are but my preliminary thoughts and personal interpretations. For more insight, consider reading the artists’ statements along with viewing their artworks. I hope you will enjoy. :)
Untitled
by Lucy Mcloughlin
2022. 132cm x 159cm.
Digital
www.atlucys.com
This piece is about dissolving your body through meditation and staying connected to your breath. Through a yogic lens the breath heals you by inhaling light and renewal and exhaling everything that does not serve you which is represented in the butterflies and moths.
Untitled
by Lucy Mcloughlin
2021. 132cm x 159cm.
Digital
www.atlucys.com
In meditation, when the rational mind and ego are not in the driver seat anymore time ceases to go in a linear fashion. It rather feels like it is all connected , like you are yourself part of all the elements, the universe, the sunset, the sunrise. It is amazing that you can access this feeling in your Pyjamas.
Island Within by Kath Fries
2021, 60cm x 300cm x 220cm
Reishi mushrooms (Australian native Ganoderma steyaertanum), mycelium and sawdust substrate, clay, threads, mdf and found broken moulds
www.kathfries.com
Island within' draws on the practice of walking meditation and Zen dry-landscape gardens.
During walking meditation, I often visualise the pressure of each footstep on the ground, touching the vast fungal mycelium networks in the soil beneath my feet; feeling part of interconnective systems which deepen my understanding of being co-creatively entangled within the world.
Just as mycelium blooms mushrooms, the fungi sculptures in Island within are blooming points or meditation mounds, poetically mapping these mindful journeys.
These explorations connect more deeply into one's being by cultivating a grounded, quiet calm space, an ‘island’ refuge within. The late Thích Nhát Hanh, explains that in walking meditation “each step can bring you back to the island within – back to the wonderful present moment, back to the now.”
'Island within' similarly invites the viewer into a contemplative experience, as the mind's-eye is led along meandering pathways and across contrasting textures. These echoes of Zen dry-landscape gardens continue as the Reishi mound sculptures are situated within a sea of broken ceramic moulds – akin to raked gravel – suggesting waves of flow, change, release, and freedom.
Reishi has been used in Japanese and Chinese medicine for centuries. Sometimes nicknamed the ‘Zen mushroom’, Reishi is traditionally taken as a tea infusion to mitigate stress, as it nurtures, calms and revitalises the body and mind. This nurturing approach also applies to my process of growing Reishi sculptures from mycelium and sawdust substrate, as they require daily tentative care. Now dried and no longer alive, these forms suggest worlds within worlds and the possibilities of discovering introspective expansive states of understanding within oneself. 'Island within' encourages looking both inward and outwards, to be more aware of, and connected to the ways our body and mind are embedded within and impact larger ecological systems.
Zentangle - The Art of Peace
by Hui Yun
2022.
Ink.
yunnielhy@gmail.com
Emotions Journal (June/July 2020)
by Long Yinghan
2020. 160cm x 166cm.
Mixed media on canvas
fleurir17@gmail.com
This project is a mindful and deliberate attempt to look into an integral part of our human condition: our fleeting emotions.
I have systematically documented my daily emotions for 2 months through consistent self check-ins, recording them down regularly, and translating the collected information into a detailed personal colour code that has been used to create this piece of artwork. Every colour and its density symbolises a specific emotion or a group of very similar emotions and their intensities. The documentation process was often uncomfortable yet intriguing at the same time as I learned to recognise difficult emotions objectively, like how a science experiment is being conducted.
Using this process and the final artwork as a tool for self-introspection and analysis, the goal here is to face this inevitable human condition with honesty, kindness, and even a sense of humour and curiosity which I feel might eventually shed some light on how we can see beyond these complexities of the mind, and to find the way out of our habitual tendencies and difficulties in life.
All Life is Noise
by Lynx Ng
2013. 50cm x 50cm.
Painting
zeroblade@gmail.com
All Life is Noise. Amidst the cacophony, a soothing pattern exists for those who are attuned to the frequency.
Weaving Consciousness
by Carlos Lorenzana
2022. 101.6cm x 101.6cm.
Digital
cmlm21@gmail.com
We are part of the universal consciousness; through our emotions and thoughts we weave its effect in society. Humanity has reached a time of letting go of attachment to the negativity around us and the negativity which has been programmed into us by our entertainment outlets. For humanity to evolve to a higher consciousness we must detach from what we know and weave positivity.
Inner Suchness by Kristina Mah
2018. 3.5m x 3.5m x 4m.
Interactive light installation.
kristina.mah@sydney.edu.au
Inner Suchness is an interactive installation that combines digital projection and augmented reality (AR). The artwork reveals multiple layers articulating self-awareness of movements from the inner world of an unfolding journey of daily contemplative practice. During the first Sydney lockdown in 2020, the artist conducted an autoethnography of her daily practice of Tonglen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation for compassion cultivation. Inner Suchness aims to embody and enact this deep first-person interrogation of experience through movement, light and interaction, generated through the metaphor of mandala offerings.
The performance uses internal and external gaze to construct, grow and offer outer and inner explorations of the mind in contemplation. One journeys with introspection in solitude but acts in relationship with the other. The work invites viewers to observe and participate by accessing another dimension through AR, conveying processes of lived experience of compassion cultivation – re/aligning, accepting, discovering, transforming and dissolving.
A mandala is a representation of a universe. Inner Suchness symbolises a process of returning to one's practice where one can observe the mind as a rich landscape of delusion and virtue, sensations of the body, abundance, suffering and enjoyments, friends, enemies and strangers. Without any sense of loss, one offers this collection, this jewelled mandala, to the great enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.
