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VISUAL ART

ARTMONEY – A GLOBAL CURRENCY WITH A COLLECTIVE HEART

Imagine a world in which everyone can make their own money. All bills are 18 x 12 cm. You can use it as real money to buy food. In fact, Artmoney was invented in 1997 as an art project aiming at cleaning up the filthy path of real money with the broom of art. The utopian hope was to create a platform, where all people are worth the same, and anyone could make their own money gain freedom from financial slavery.

BAMIYAN REBORN

Andra Samelson’s art celebrating the world’s two tallest standing statues of Buddha that were destroyed on March 11, 2001 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan by the fundamentalist Taliban rulers. These statues were of tremendous importance to the cultural heritage of Afghanistan. The intention was to relate the tragic event in Bamiyan to the tragic event of the eradication of Tibet, and to the Dalai Lama’s forced exit from Tibet, while emphasizing that as a living Buddha, he is still present in the world as a symbol of peace and compassion and tolerance.

THE INFINITY NET

Article about the painter Yayoi Kusama: Each part of the cosmos is reflective of the whole, like the sparkling jewels in Indra’s Net, our capacity to experience this infinitude eventually becomes exceedingly clear and unhindered. Connecting the dots, from Indra’s Net to the Infinity Nets, the fabric of the universe can be perceived and experienced as one and the same.

MIND LOOKING AT ITSELF

My teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist Mahamudra, Dzogchen meditation master and artist, was the most profound teacher of life, art, and mind. I received pointing out instructions from him which brings the investigation and recognition of mind’s flawless nature into personal experience cutting through conceptual obscurations, that is our endless, dualistic thoughts and emotions. My abstract contemplative art practice is completely informed by these realizations.

ARTIST OF LIFE

I am facing the loss of an old friend and she is, by turns, weak and failing and then blooming with renewed energy. The spark in her eyes returned as bright as ever. The ebb and flow so remarkable and yet so sudden as to question my role in this play. Who am I to decide when pain and suffering is too much to bear?

THE BEAUTY OF TRANSMISSION: A STUDENT, AN ASSISTANT AND A LIVING NATIONAL TREASURE

In South Korea the government supports skilled craftsmen financially, so they can focus solely on their arts and crafts during their productive years. Han Sang-Soo was such a living treasure, designated by the Cultural Heritage Administration – exactly number 80 out of many fine craftsmen and women mastering various arts. She died a few years ago, having worked 60 years with embroidery.

EINSAMKEIT

These paintings Einsamkeit were done long ago, and it started one day I was feeling this conglomeration of fear, sadness and resignation, so deeply that I locked myself up in my studio for several weeks, to not be distracted by anything and able to face things directly.

SPACE TO REFLECT

Each day, carve a moment to reflect, to find the vast, blue stillness within you. Don’t trip on the obstacles. There is a part of you that knows the way. Just nod and follow. Each time you return here, You will receive a radiant and warm welcome. You’ve been awaiting your own arrival, quietly preparing with attentiveness and love.

IN HIDDEN WORLDS: THREE PHOTOSUPREMATIST ARTISTS

Three contemporary Hungarian artists, Balint Szombathy, Aniko Robitz, and Minyo Szert have been exploring the worlds hidden within the surface of perceptual phenomena. In very different ways, using fixed images derived from photographic and telephotographic processes, they uncover and give us new and very different worlds.

REMEMBERING NEPAL – ONE YEAR LATER

Bhaktapur Chronicle: An Earthquake Magnitude 7.8. The fate of millions of lives was sealed in an instant. It was the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded in the history of Nepal. It left more than eight million people directly affected.

WORKING WITH BUDDHA IMAGES

I have used the iconic image of the Buddha as a way to represent both the vast view of ultimate truth and as the container of relative truth along with the inherent qualities of the effect of oil on paper. The paper will age, become fragile.

JUST AS MIST ON A MIRROR FADES

In collaboration with a video developer, musician and composer, the movements allows for the transforming, dissolving of forms and ground creating a spacious reflecting mandala that attempts to mirror the motivation of the original intent of Martha’s paintings and textures.

ART IS FOR TRANSFORMATION

I come from a long line of sufi saints who brought Sufism to Bangladesh. It’s quite a spiritual approach; my work isn’t religious, it just reflects the way I am in my life.

INVESTIGATING THE MIND THROUGH ART

My work is driven by a curiosity into the investigation of mind thru art. None of us can avoid thoughts, but through awareness of our pitfalls, beauty, strengths and weaknesses we can open windows into the mind. The core of my contemplative art practice is to visually embody the blind spots as a result of our thoughts.

MANDALA ART AS THERAPY

A year ago I was hospitalized and created a new mandala each day for healing purposes. It helped me calm my mind, and each day the mandalas improved as well as my health, an amazing parallel healing process, both physical and spiritual from the very deep tissue level.

PARIS, CITY OF LIGHT

The melancholy and dark approach somehow fit the frustration and sadness that hit me in the light of the sad events that happened at venues, cafes and in the streets of Paris, November 13, 2015. This is a tribute to peace and the multicultural City of Light.