Seven Paintings

I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO PAINT seven paintings ... seven characters representing the seven chakras in each of the seven colours.
Chakra is a Sanskrit term meaning circle or wheel and describes a system that is used in many belief systems. Each chakra point is a place in the body and represents also a spiritual aspect. Taken together the seven chakras describe a flow of energy and a development within.


If you were to look for imagery of the chakras you would most likely find swathes of rainbows and swirling misty colourful evanescences. I chose instead to paint seven interesting and strange characters, in broken oil paint on wooden breadboards. This commission will take time and I will work one by one through the seven from tailbone to the top of my head. In each painting I will include a horizon which crosses the body at the chakra point and an animal associated with the chakra's spiritual aspect. In each painting a colour will dominate, but quietly. I hope that when hung together on their owner's wall, they will look like a series of old icons, strange and perhaps mystical in a very different sense from many other visual representations of old eastern belief systems.