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Luminous - Transcendent
Miya Ando
steel, patina, pigment, automotive lacquer
Ghost Series
Miya Ando
print on aluminum
Images © copyright Miya Ando |
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miya ando
swords and steel and subtle traces
of nothingness
[Sword making has always been part of Miya Ando's family
identity, mythology and history. Her family went from making swords into
the Buddhist priesthood. Both have impacted and informed her path as an
artist.]
I am very influenced by Zen
practices such as the tea ceremony and concepts such as nothingness and
MuShin - total absorption in a task, Mu (nothingness) and non-duality.
Mushin is the total absorption in a
single task - meditation, prayer, sanding metal. I approach my studio
practice as a practice of Mushin - a complete focus on the physical task
of creating my works. The intention is to go toward a state of
non-duality and loss of ego.
According to the
Buddhist concept of Sunyata, the impermanent nature of form means that
nothing possesses essential, enduring identity. This is the nature of my
work.
Question: When you talk about going into a "state of non duality" do you mean
becoming one with the work; loss of subject/object awareness during the
process of making the work? Or do you mean that you are using the
art-making process as a means of meditation to attain a non-dual state
on a permanent basis? As a form of transcendence of the egoic state?
Yes, I consider my studio
practice to be a meditative one; a practice in the loss of the ego via
absorption/focus in a task (in my case that would be the task of working
with steel - the process of creating my works involves some extreme
activities that involve working with fire, serious caustics, sharp
tools, loud sanding, acid etching, heavy vapors that require a
respirator - many of these activities call for total focus given the
intensity of the activity and the very short working time, this I have
found to be helpful in my practice of concentration and focus). The
state of non-duality is one wherein there is a loss of difference between
the viewer and that which the viewer perceives. I do see the practice
of art as potentially transformative and [it] can be transcendent.
The Ghost Series is about non-duality,
actually. The difference is that there is a figurative element to the
works. The idea was that the surface of the work is reflective -
perhaps there is another being reflected back - the work become a
window, the work becomes a trace of something very subtle. Perhaps the
ghost is an iteration of a quality we all have universally within
ourselves. I am very interested in these very subtle traces of what
could be nothingness.
Source:
Non-Duality Magazine - edited from an interview with Miya Ando
miya
ando's website
artisans
what is this nonduality?
slow art
artisans' gallery
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