Mandalas and Modules

In this online virtual exhibition, Mandalas and Modules, Ron Hartgrove and I place our paintings in a critical but respectful dialogue with each other. Hartgrove’s art, which evades precise categorization, is inspired by incommunicable personal experiences of unbounded awareness during periods of Transcendental Meditation, which he has practiced for fifty-five years. Therefore, Hartgrove’s works express a skepticism towards language and serve as records of his exploration beyond the current horizons of abstract art. In Hartgrove’s large-scale watercolor and acrylic paintings, the mandala appears as a mysterious structure that paradoxically sets consciousness free while focusing it. In my work, however, randomly arranged modules map out chaotic labyrinths from which no escape seems possible, though ironically neither may it be desirable. Furthermore, in my paintings I consider whether illusions are useful aspects of reality rather than just dangerous aberrations of it. In addition to presenting Hartgrove’s philosophical and aesthetic approach against the backdrop of my own, Mandalas and Modules also allows the viewer to trace some lines of influence that his oeuvre has had on my artistic development since we became friends ten years ago.