The highest truth is without image. Yet if there were no image there would be no possibility for the truth to manifest itself.
The highest principle is without words. Yet if there were no words, how could the principle be known?
-Buddhist inscription 746 AD

Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning sacred circle. Traditionally, mandalas have been associated with healing and meditation. Mandalas, for me, are energetic mappings of the silent underlying rhythms of the cosmos inherent and mirrored in all things. The circle of a mandala offers a space for the undercurrents and tensions that form the matrix of the cosmos to be encapsulated in imagery. The mandala is a space where the micro meets the macro, where the personal and the greater merge, where the intangible is given shape and the paradoxical expressed. The circle of a mandala is a sacred space where everything meets and anything can happen.

Whether rippling dynamism or gentle motion, movement infiltrates the serenity of a mandala creating a harmonious composition of poised motion, infused with vitality and quietude. This meditative space invites the viewer in, whilst vibrations of the imagery emanate out. And so the mandala mediates a connection between self and the energy of the macrocosm, offering a melting of one into the other. A harmonising of self with the greater cosmic order and flow, is the medicine of mandala.

The painting process begins with something brewing in the cauldron of the subconscious, before erupting into the minds eye as an image. The journey begins, always, with an empty circle; empty of everything but potential. If I am perceptive enough, I see the energy encoded in the mandala manifesting itself in my daily living before, during and after painting it. The perimeter of the mandala extends to encompass my life. These manifestations are generally simple mundane observations and connections or perhaps minor epiphanies; gentle revelations slowly soaking consciousness. Likewise, the painting process is a slow soaking of layers and layers of oil into canvas. The process is a prolonged meditation of one to several months. It is a test of patience, a slow transformation and emergence onto canvas.

Stillness within stillness is not the real stillness. Only when there is stillness within movement can the spiritual rhythm appear which pervades heaven and earth.
-Taoist saying