2022 Issue 2 (September)

Buddhist Art Meditations

(BAM) Journal

BAM Journal 2022 Issue Two

We are happy to continue this year with Issue Two of the journal, which is aimed at exchanging ideas on connecting creative and Buddhist practices. We had the privilege to consider the submissions responding to the open call for creative interpretations of “Buddhist Art”. Some works may appear in more than one article, whereas others were left out this time, for consideration for future issues.

Inspired by the submissions, this issue, we offer four more contemplative conceptual approaches towards Buddhism and Art.
We hope you will find them as thought-provoking as we did putting the research together.

Thank you to all the contributors and thank you to the readers.

We are also accepting submissions for the next issue (for Jan 2023), so please feel free to send in your works. Besides all forms of Buddhist Art, we are especially interested in collating works that are relevant to the theme of “self and not-self” for the next issue. Hope this will inspire you creatively!


The Coordinators of BAM
Sept 2022

 Contributors

  • Currently, I am studying for a High Art Certificate at the NCAD. My artworks' topics vary from the metaphysical experience of the human inside their mind and the expected experience the individual has and how it can be broken. The work uses a variety of archetypes and symbols to represent this, as well as some social critique ideas repeat themselves.

    Previously to this, I studied Journalism and Digital Art and Design. I took a couple of fine art courses at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Marwen for four years, and for 3 years I studied oil painting in Mexico City at the Claustro de Sor Juana. During the years 2012 and 2015, I exhibited my artwork in different galleries worldwide and most recently I exhibited some pieces at the Grand Social venue located in Dublin and illustrated a book called Migratory Yellow Pages.

    https://www.instagram.com/atzingarcia

    I am looking to become Buddhist but I still looking around to see which type of Buddhist is the one for me

  • I am a self-taught artist based in Singapore and uses art as a form of self help and meaning making. Currently I worked with both the digital and traditional medium (watercolour, pen.) I have participated in mural paintings with Participate in Design (P!D) Singapore and have exhibited my works with The Starving Artist at Fluid Spaces show Edition 2. I hope my artworks can inspire you, give you hope that the sorrows of life can be transformed via creativity.

    https://bittergodart.wordpress.com

    https://www.instagram.com/bittergodart

  • Artist Catherine Eaton Skinner illuminates the balance of opposites and numerical systems – ranging from simple tantric forms to complex grids, reflecting mankind’s attempts to connect to place/each other.

    Skinner’s creativity stems from growing up in the Pacific Northwest, her Stanford biology degree and painting instruction from Bay Area Figurative painters Nathan Oliveira and Frank Lobdell. Between Seattle and Santa Fe studios, she concentrates on painting, encaustic, photography, printmaking and sculpture.

    100+ publications have highlighted Skinner’s art, including LandEscape Art Review, MVIBE, Artdose, Art Folio, Art Magazineium, Magazine 43, APERO Fine Arts Catalogue and publication of her monograph 108 (Radius Books).

    Catherine Eaton Skinner currently has solo exhibitions at the Branigan Cultural Center at Las Cruces Museum of Art, NM and the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center, Las Vegas, as well as upcoming exhibitions at Pie Projects, Santa Fe, NM; the Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT; Corvid Exhibit State Tour traveling throughout Missouri to Runge Nature Center, Jefferson City; Burr Oak Woods Nature Center, Blue Springs; Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center, Kansas City; Springfield Nature Center, Springfield; Powder Valley Nature Center, St. Louis; and Cape Girardeau Nature Center, Cape Girardeau. Recent exhibitions include WaterWorks Gallery, Friday Harbor, WA; SITE Santa Fe and SITE Santa Fe Studio Tour, Santa Fe, NM; Grange Insurance Audubon Center, Columbus, OH; and Slocumb Galleries/East Tennessee State University, TN. She has had 40+ solo and numerous group exhibitions, including Marin MOCA, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Wildling Museum of Art and Nature, Royal Academy of Art, Yellowstone Art Museum and High Desert Museum. Awards include Art in Embassies Program, US Embassy, Papua New Guinea 2020-2023 and the Acclaimed Artists Series 2020-2022, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Corporate/public collections: US Embassy in Tokyo, Boeing Corporation and the University of Washington/Seattle.

    http://www.ceskinner.com

    https://www.instagram.com/ceskinner

    I am Buddhist in my heart. This way of life, beliefs and guide for life speaks to me, and I hold it dear.

  • I am an engineer and reuse artist using natural material as well as manufacturing byproduct to produce indoor and outdoor public artworks. I make art daily and try to make art with others at least once a week.

    kingchrisgstudios.com

    https://www.instagram.com/kingchrisg

    I try to be a compassionate human being daily"

  • Shikha Baheti Lohia is an emerging artist from Hyderabad, India making predominantly achromatic drawings in pen and ink on paper under the pseudonym Kalam Dhari meaning ‘Pen Wielder’ in Hindi. Shikha's drawings are in a way a dated journal, acting as a visual synopsis of her musings and tenets about facets of nature that are not just aesthetic but existential. Apart from the evident aesthete, nature for her is about survival, hunger, the circle of dying and living again. She looks beyond the stereotypical visualization of plant life and emphasizes the underlying biology. What captures her imagination is the very life force that creates and connects all elements in nature and everything derived from it; deeming all materials, compounds, flora and fauna equal and alive.

    Her use of black ink is inspired not only by her education background in architecture but she uses black ink also because as colors black and white are all encompassing and in her opinion are the most pure, humble and true colors.

    www.shikhabaheti.com

    http://www.instagram.com/kalam_dhari

    I am born in a Hindu family. I am not a religious person per se.

  • I’ am raised as a protestant Christian. In the beginning that was also not being open to other religions but as I grew older luckyly that changed. Good for me cause I had so many questions especially when I discovered other religions and believes.

    During my first big trip abroad long ago, with my by then boyfriend (now my husband for 35 years). We met some Buddhist monks in Thailand who took us on a journey for 3 days visiting some monasteries and that meeting made a life long impression.

    For my project about silence I studied the book silence by Thich Nhat Hanh for a year to prepare for not speaking 6 days. Since then I follow a lot of the now available online information from Plum village. At the moment the podcast ;The way out is in.

    I hope my work reflects a little bit what these meeting with buddhist ment to me and by sending it to you I hope to be able to share it with more people.

    Little side note I live in the Netherlands but I have a multicultural background, and my father and grandmother are born in Indonesia

    https://www.instagram.com/portfolioliprints/

  • Yinghan is a Singaporean art practitioner with a multi-disciplinary arts background. She holds a Diploma in Western Painting from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and a BFA(Hons) Degree in Digital Animation from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and was a digital visual effects artist working on feature films for over a decade. From a young age, Yinghan has been deeply touched by the teachings of the Buddha. She is particularly interested in the Buddhist teachings on impermanence and emptiness/ interconnectedness of all phenomena, and is deeply inspired by the teachings on mindfulness by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Lately, she has been exploring the healing effect of mindfulness and intuitive art-making, which she feels could provide solace and possibly inspire solutions in a modern life that is filled with challenges and uncertainty

    I regularly take part in Dharma activities organised by the Joyful Garden Sangha in Singapore which is a lay community that follows the Plum Village tradition.

  • I am artist and writer from Malta and my art has been exhibited both locally and abroad and featured in Magazines. I am also writer and author of four novels and my poetry has been published in several International Anthologies.

    https://www.instagram.com/mary.a.zammit/

    I am not qiute Buddhist, though I like but I am more inclined to Kabalah and the Study of Universal White Brotherhood

  • I came into the arts in search of a better way to live and consider my endeavours as part of my research process. My literary and visual works present absurdist introspective reflections on purposes of life and art and other existential concerns. They suggest points of amusement or aspirational optimism amidst an ambivalent existential void. They tend to be hybridised forms of writing, installations, and ink art. I go by different names but usually meekfreak / Lee Ju-Lyn.

    meekfreak.com

  • I make art under the pseudonym 'Michelle Exhales' because I am a psychologist in my "day job". Creating and viewing art continues to be one of my passions.

    I've been making art since ... forever ... but officially started with a community college course in ceramics in 2001. I have presented solo art exhibitions, curated exhibitions, participated in group shows and contributed to the Sydney art community.

    My regular and improvisational art practice currently includes drawing, painting, installation, ceramics, photography and experimenting with many different mediums in response to a creative prompt.

    I also run a tiny exhibition space known as 'Nix Gallery' and support people's creativity as a coach at 'Creative Conversations’.

    I am a contemplative artist in that I make art as a meditation, for reflection, an act of kindness, as a prayer, and as a way of investigating and understanding my own nature and the nature of the cosmos. And just for the fun and joy of it!

    I am a contemporary artist in that I completed a Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours) at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney.

    We cannot help but interpret and shape information that we receive through the senses in terms of ideas, our passions, and our psyche, and this is what I am investigating and expressing through my practice.

    http://www.michelle-exhales.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/michelle.exhales

  • Myrthe Biesheuvel is a visual artist born and raised in The Netherlands. She studied for a BFA with a concentration in Painting at the University of North Carolina Charlotte in the USA and got a diploma in Classical Painting and Drawing Techniques at the Wackers academie in Amsterdam. Myrthe currently lives and works in Singapore. In August 2021 she had her first solo exhibition, Dreamscapes, at the Gillman Barracks in Singapore.

    Myrthe uses all kinds of mediums but oil paint is her favourite: 'I love the tactile quality and the directness of paint. In a world where we spend many hours a day on our phones and computer, it is liberating to use other senses like smell and touch and soothing to focus on one image for a longer period of time.’

    www.myrthebiesheuvel.com

    https://www.instagram.com/myrthe_biesheuvel

    I don't consider myself to be a Buddhist but read about Buddhism and have always feel attracted to it.

    Please tell us more about your faith?That is a hard question. I guess I'm still trying to figure this out. I'm interested in the development of the (spiritual) self and the idea of overall interconnectedness strongly speaks to me.

  • I believe in a powerful human no limit mind

    http://www.garrulous.art/

  • It has become customary for me to speak from a female face. Draw and explain the feelings that I wanted to express. Or vice versa - first feel, and then draw. Creating an alter ego, especially if it is of the opposite sex, makes it possible to stretch your feelings and develop empathy. It becomes a good way to become a little more tolerant in a world in which hostility and violence are growing like a snowball.

    When I draw, I pass through a woman's story, there is not only fear, pain or despair, but also desires, hopes, light. A journey into another image as a chance to live a second life when everyone is content with one.

    https://artsillustrated.com/oleg-khe-artist/

    https://www.instagram.com/kheoleg/

    After all, I am closer to Buddhism. And I really like yoga.

  • Siew Guang Hong (b. 2000) mainly works with ceramics and soft sculpture, but is also experimenting widely with digital and motorised art forms. He explores different aesthetic principles, developing a practice surrounding abject and uncanny representations of biology. He tends towards themes of gender and sexuality, but is unafraid to express his passion for other topics important to him. Inspired by his Buddhist and vegetarian upbringing, Siew identifies and aims to express the link between lack of spiritual mindfulness and the anthropocentrism associated with contemporary issues like capitalist consumerism, agribusiness and genetic modification. His utility of the grotesque in his projects is heavily linked to his belief that such holocene changes are prophetic of dharmic decline that must be acknowledged before they are addressed.

    Siew graduated from SOTA (2018) and is currently pursuing his BAFA(Hons) in LASALLE College of the Arts. Notably, he received the LASALLE-Administered Scholarship (2022-), TIF-SOTA Scholarship (2021-2024), and the David Marshall Scholarship (2017-2018). His works have recently been showcased in Straits Gallery; Another Impossibility (2022), SOTA Gallery; Pulse Awards 2021, Pulse Gallery Bangkok (2022); TIF Virtual Emerald Auction (2021) and The Unforgetting Space (2017), TheatreWorks.

    https://siewguanghong.wixsite.com/portfolio

  • I am a Cardiologist working in Mumbai. I am untrained painter and create work only by using my intuition and understanding of philosophy and human psychology. Painting occurred accidentally to me after a near death experience.

  • T. Shuxia is an artist and illustrator from Singapore. She works with various mediums with a focus in storytelling through art, particularly in making zines, comics and picture books. She is part of the zine community Zzzink! at the Orchard library and her zine Extraction was reproduced and distributed there. In April 2022, her comic “The Collector’s Invite” was published in the comic anthology Nice to meet you! by COMIX.SG and received the Editor’s Pick Award. Prior to making art full-time, Shuxia has done arts education research at UNESCO-NIE Centre for Arts Research in Education (CARE) at NIE, NTU. She has also facilitated visual arts and photovoice community arts projects with seniors, youth and migrant workers. Shuxia has a multidisciplinary background in fine arts cultural studies, community arts and graphic design.

    https://www.tshuxia.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/t.shuxia/

    Shuxia was brought up in a Tibetan Buddhist family. While she was influenced by Buddhism, she didn’t study or practiced it in earnest. In her twenties she began reading up on non-violent resistance for her studies in community arts and came upon Satish Kumar’s book “You Are, Therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence” and Thich Naht Hanh’s “Love In Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change”. From then on, she became more interested in Buddhist philosophy and tries to meditate more often.

  • Terry Murray is an Associate Professor Emeritus at SUNY New Paltz who taught in the Humanistic/ Multicultural Education Program full and part time for 35 years. Over the past 15 years, his research and writing interests have focused on self-knowledge development, contemplative practices in teaching and learning, and the integration of contemplative education and social justice/equity work. In his retirement, Terry and his wife have taught for a month each year from 2028 to 2020 in Chongqing, China as part of a SUNY New Paltz education partnership program.

    Terry has worked to integrate contemplative and mindfulness philosophies and practices in teaching a range of graduate and undergraduate course courses, and has collaborated with colleagues across the U.S. to establish mindful communities on college and university campuses. He is a co-founder of the SUNY New Paltz Faculty/Staff Contemplative Group , which is now in its tenth year, and an active member of the Budding Flower Sangha in Thich Nhat Hahn’s tradition.

    In addition to his work as a college professor, over the past 45 years Terry has facilitated workshops regionally and nationally around a broad range of topics and with a wide range of groups.

    A practicing artist and labyrinth designer, Terry’s paintings and sculptural pieces have been exhibited throughout the Hudson Valley. He has designed and constructed labyrinths at the Heritage Middle School in New Windsor New York and the Cornwall Grail Center in Cornwall New York.

    www.creativepilgrimjourney.com

  • Winifred Wong is a Singaporean writer based in Berlin. Her poems have appeared in SAND Journal, SingPoWriMo, Bridge Poetry, SOFTBLOW Poetry Journal. Her EP ‘things i’m afraid to tell you’ is available on all streaming platforms.

    https://www.instagram.com/hellowinnieeee

Submit your works for the 2022 Issue 3 of BAM by 30 Nov 2022

Open call details here.

Coordinators

  • Jennifer Teo is a cultural worker who works primarily as an artist and curator. She considers herself a global citizen, and enjoys living and working in multiple cities around the world. She has a wide interest in socio-cultural issues, particularly those related to care, climate, community, feminism, food, knowledge, and spirituality.

    http://acidiq.wordpress.com

    She grew up in a Mahayana Buddhist family, but didn’t take it seriously until 2019 when she took the Chenrezig Initiation by HH the Dalai Lama.

  • I came into the arts in search of a better way to live and consider my endeavours as part of my research process.

    As an extension of my art practice, my curatorial and community art initiatives present speculations on inter-relatedness and pluralism. They are typically organic social experiments that test ideas about liberty and inclusivity through dynamic collaborations. These projects have a spontaneous, ground-up sensibility, and culminate as alternative exhibitions, like publications or websites.

    I go by different names but usually meekfreak / Lee Ju-Lyn.

    https://meekfreak.com

    https://www.instagram.com/meekfreak

    https://www.facebook.com/meekfreak

    Yes, I am Buddhist, inclining towards Theravada Thai Forest tradition.

  • Ong Xiao Yun is an artist based in Singapore, trained in both Fine Arts and Buddhist Studies. She is the cofounder of Artists Caravan, an arts collective in Singapore.

    http://ongxiaoyun.com

    https://www.instagram.com/ong.xiaoyun/

    She is a Buddhist and has volunteered with different Buddhist organisations in Singapore. She loves and treasures pilgrim trips and time spend with her kalyanamitta.

  • T. Shuxia is an artist and illustrator from Singapore. She works with various mediums with a focus in storytelling through art, particularly in making zines, comics and picture books. She is part of the zine community Zzzink! at the Orchard library and her zine Extraction was reproduced and distributed there. In April 2022, her comic “The Collector’s Invite” was published in the comic anthology Nice to meet you! by COMIX.SG and received the Editor’s Pick Award. Prior to making art full-time, Shuxia has done arts education research at UNESCO-NIE Centre for Arts Research in Education (CARE) at NIE, NTU. She has also facilitated visual arts and photovoice community arts projects with seniors, youth and migrant workers. Shuxia has a multidisciplinary background in fine arts cultural studies, community arts and graphic design.

    https://www.tshuxia.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/t.shuxia/

    Shuxia was brought up in a Tibetan Buddhist family. While she was influenced by Buddhism, she didn’t study or practiced it in earnest. In her twenties she began reading up on non-violent resistance for her studies in community arts and came upon Satish Kumar’s book “You Are, Therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence” and Thich Naht Hanh’s “Love In Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change”. From then on, she became more interested in Buddhist philosophy and tries to meditate more often.