Where does a creation come from? And who is creating?
I believe everyone was born a creative being, this is our true nature and a fundamental human need; but after four years of formal education in the arts it has taken me quite some time in letting go of old expectations and conditioning, as well as loosening my attachments towards my own creative identity.
It was during one of my workshops and teaching my students mindfulness through art that I began to see the artist as a vessel through which something higher and greater can be expressed. In this process an artist is humbled and receptive, as creation flows through.
Although I am a conceptual artist, I craved my art to have even more of a sense of purpose; and I believed that my creative process could be a vehicle in achieving this. As a mother I lead a busy life, and my mind if often thinking of the “next thing”, I recognised within myself that I needed refuge from the daily grind and that would come from stopping and being in the moment. That’s when my meditation art practice was born, in which I create artworks from a meditative state of mind.
My current work utilises the natural desire to create in order to support spiritual growth.
For me creating art through meditation isn’t about planning ahead to the end product, but instead significance is placed in the process of creating. To surrender to the process means to create attentively and with more awareness, therefore each mark is made only in the present moment allowing the creativity to occur on its own terms. Here I can connect to my true artist within, where I am both artist and observer as this process takes place.
My current work can be described as a synthesis of abstraction and pure expression. This is meditation-in-action, where I incorporate breath, mantra, and discipline. To the sound of meditative music I produce thousands of tiny hand-drawn circles (each circle taking form in a single breath), which in its own time results in a finished piece of art.