Comment on my artwork by composer and visual artist, Prof. Dr.Edward Cowie:

In his introduction to Paul Klee’s pamphlet ‘On modern art’, Herbert Read explains that Klee defends the right of the artist to create his own order of reality. But this transcendental world…can only be created if the artist obeys certain rules, implicit in the natural order. Like Klee, I am drawn to following ‘certain rules’, in order to show what is typical, rather than what is individual. This search for general patterns and principles leads me to a serial approach to artmaking that allows an in-depth exploration of relatively few visual elements. My palette is largely limited to blues and reddish-browns, the colours of sky and earth. The shapes I use are mainly the hemisphere, the circle, and, more rarely, the triangle and square. My work evolves through variations on these themes, playing with parameters such as rhythm, colour, tone, placement, etc in a highly conscious and at the same time organically unfolding way. The element of repetition inherent in this approach serves as an essential means of spiritual/artistic discipline. It forms the basis for a creative process that is not concerned with expressing a temporary, subjective emotional state or with the representation of nature. I don’t spend time choosing what to paint; rather the creative process is carried along by necessities arising from the art materials and images themselves. A.S.Byatt, in her novel ‘Whistling Woman’ talks about the adequate intelligence of the Master [Vermeer]. Who had set himself problems only he could solve, and had solved them, and made a mystery.

My background in rhythmics, which provided a thorough immersion in principles of improvisation in music and movement, no doubt plays an influential role in making art in this systematic, and naturally evolving way, where formation is as important as form. This approach to creative work is by no means unique. Klee noted in his diary: …to adapt oneself to the contents of the paint box is more important than nature and its study.

Nature rarely presents ‘perfect’ geometrical forms, and neither do I. My circles are more like pebbles than marbles and there are no straight edges except in the framing. Nevertheless, there is an instinctive attraction to these shapes (and I am here in the company of many other artists). It can perhaps be interpreted as an attempt to control nature, to find order in chaos. This motivation can also be attributed to the performance of ritual.

Looking at the whole body of the work, I notice the re-occurrence of the shape of the hemisphere as perhaps one of the most striking and enduring features. It can be interpreted as straightness folding. Whereas a straight line communicates a one-directional, intellectual stance, a curve indicates movement and change. In my work it appears as mountain, lake, cup, gate, mask, if one wants to see it in a representational way, or more abstractly, simply as halves of a disc. The shape of the bowl appears more frequently than any other: a symbol for receptivity, and as such, a part of the shrines of many traditions. Divinity is signalled by the rounded earthen jar, heavy-laden with water, the fluid of life….. The making of the pot or image is conceived of as in itself an offering, or as an act of self-consecration to the deity. Mookerjee, 1985: 20

Inherent in the shape lies a dynamic tension derived from the implicit possibility of the wholeness of the circle, the resolving of opposites of male and female, earth and sky, etc. In the meditation series I play with the opposite direction of the curves and the tension between the two. In some of my pieces, the open form of the semi-disk resolves into the complete, full (or empty) circle. It would not be possible though to depict only wholeness - it seems that the creative process needs to open up the tension between ‘the 2’ (as opposed to ‘the1’) again and again. I find the symbol irresistible; it seems to be one of these archetypes that one finds in all cultures, particularly in religious contexts (the arches of church windows, the cup or bowl). In Tibetan Buddhism we find the term samputa, which literally means a hemispherical bowl, or the hollow space between two bowls placed together. Tibetan renderings of samputa imply either ‘perfect union’ or ‘mystic embrace’. There are reverberations of these curves throughout the body: from the white moon in fingernails to the scull cup; from the arches of the feet to the dome of the diaphragm.

Some of the pieces show the traces of ritual activity in a direct and non-adulterated way. In the rhythm of breathing was made by pushing, with my finger, into freshly prepared paper pulp (not unlike the sand drawings of hunter-gatherers). They are records of actual happenings and perhaps speak to the viewer with a certain immediacy that almost makes him/her a partaker in the ritual. Paper making as a technique of artmaking is a highly repetitive process and invites reflections on the difference between routine and ritual. The presence of mindfulness can turn any routine activity (like washing the dishes) into a ritual that enhances a sense of meaning. And without this quality of alertness, traditional religious rituals degenerate into empty forms.