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The 'Changing Face Buddha' series.

For those who follow me it doesn't come as a surprise that I am often working on several projects at the same time. I can spend weeks, or even months on several writing projects to then feel a strong urge to paint again. Apart from conducting my art classes, I dedicate my time  between writing projects and creating paintings.

I love to work in series and have, among others, created a series of 'masked ladies', 'flamenco dancers', 'animal impressions' and 'Angel paintings'.

To me painting is a very calming thing to do. Sometimes life throws challenges at you and in 2019 my husband and I were facing quite a few challenges. His mother died, there was a water problem at the avocado farm, so for weeks there was hardly any water, which was a major issue, and then we were, we feel not treated correctly, or I even felt ripped off in a situation that I believed was a friendship. My husband practices Tai Chi to remain calm, in fact, that's how we met, but I was just very stressed and I could not get things out of my head.

Now I must say that have been attracted to Buddha images, statues, and to Buddha wisdom for quite a few years, but I had never painted them. Not even thought about it. But while I felt the stress was really getting to me I suddenly felt inspired to create some Buddha paintings. My very first painting, see image, sold rather quickly, so that was a nice side effect too. But I must say that the painting of the Buddha images itself totally calmed my brain. I was able to accept and let go, which was really the only thing I could do.

I was in a flow and several Buddha paintings came into existence. I loved the process, but was surprised by the tranquility the final images actually transmitted.

An Italian friend, who is a practicing Bhuddist, asked me if he could see one of my paintings, so I sent him a short video. He loved it so much that he asked me whether it was OK to pass it on to his Maestro, a Buddhist monk, who resides in Italy. The feedback from the monk was wonderful. "Il viso risplende di Luce e serenita, quella è la tua vera coscienza'. Trust me, that's a compliment. He then suggested to put the painting in the space where we spend most of our time, which I did. 

What surprised me more than I expected is that creating the Buddha paintings totally helped me to let go of my worries and anxiety. I became calm and felt really happy with the result. I made a series of several Buddha paintings and called them "The Changing Face of Buddha".  I believe that owning one of these paintings or a quality print of one of my Buddha impressions can also create that calm and tranquillity in your home or workspace.

There is a reason why I called this series the 'Changing Face of Buddha'. When you look at these Buddha paintings the colours change, depending on from where you are looking at them. This is because I used bronze, silver and gold paint. All artworks are made with acrylic paint.

The deeper meaning is that we all occasionally (or some people all the time) change our faces, depending on who we meet or where we are. We judge each other based on what we perceive, but in reality we are all the same. Something that is sometimes hard to understand, especially when you look at the current state our world is in.

With this Buddha series I'm hoping to emanate some hope and tranquillity into the world. Some of the shown artworks are for sale on my website and also via the Saatchi online Art gallery.