Beyond the Veil of Appearances

Two daughters were born to my two sons recently on the same day.

What is it about new born babies that so enchants? Why do people stare and stare at them, often with a half smile on their lips?

This series of 16 "Zen icons," was inspired by the grandchildren’s arrival and starts as a visual wondering about what those new-born babies radiate, what space they inhabit. It continues with images – I don’t say portraits because the attempt was to go behind portraiture – of their blissful mothers, meditators, sages etc; people who seem to exist in a climate of peace and spaciousness, of love and trust; in short the climate of the divine.

I used as the containing discipline, like two banks of a river, two traditions of sacred art; Orthodox icons and Zen ink paintings – the one timeless, unchanging and hieratic, the other unpredictable, one-breath spontaneous.

One of the functions of sacred Art is to paint the invisible. Spending time in a Cathedral, standing before a Byzantine icon or a seventh century Buddha we sense the Beyond. These paintings are therefore just metaphors for the ineffable. I hope that they will inspire the spectator to encounter their interiority and enhance their sense of life’s spectacular journey.

The series is entitled "Beyond the Veil of Appearances"

All but one of the images are acrylic painted on plywood (12"x15" or 350x425mm) – the first image is on canvas.

Contact: rashidmaxwell(at)yahoo.com (replace (at) with @)

Text by Rashid – June 2009

Everyday Buddhas by Rashid

Everyday Buddhas by Rashid – reproduced by permission – click on picture to see bigger version

Rashid‘s Buddha drawings have been regulary seen in the Viha Connections magazine and are part of the many illustrations in his poetry book Life Is One Blessed Thing After Another.

He writes us about his Buddhas:

"There is a tattered photocopy of a buddha statue always on my wall. Is it from a Burmese or Cambodian sculpture? Is it third or fourteenth century? I still don’t know. It touches me at some point that I can‘t locate, in a way I can’t describe.

Some half forgotten story comes to me about a buddhist master staying overnight in a temple by a river. He liked to honour Buddha by making little carvings of him everywhere he went. There was insufficient wood around and in the morning when he went his way, the local monks were horrified to find their temple statue had been carved into a thousand wood-chip buddhas which floated down the river.

Some years ago, I thought to make as many drawings of this photocopy as it took to reach the source of inspiration. I would work quite small and use just black and white to narrow down the field, to focus the intent, to frame the koan.

So all day and every day, I drew for weeks. The drawings followed no particular pattern and no rules. I would draw with miniature precision or with absolute abandon. left handed or with brushes in each hand, at night, with scissors, from inspiration and from no-inspiration.

I offer them as milestones on the Way of Meditation."

Contact: rashid Maxwell
4 Shute Wood
Hollocombe
Devon
EX 18 7 QJ
44 01837 83667
rashidmaxwell(at)yahoo.com (replace (at) with @)

Text by Rashid – 2007