A: Is for the healing properties of Art

On Thursday I went with Jen, Sherry and Sandra gallery hoping. It was all pretty blase until we walked into Sundaram Tagore gallery and were struck with the raw expression of a soul iridescence with color. Sohan Qadri's paintings have the energy to radiate from within the paper. They don't sit inertly on the surface, they vibrate with the pulse of life. Born in Punjab, India, Qadri was educated in ancient spiritual traditions. He spent two years in "long silences" and meditations in remote temples in the Himalayas and Tibet. Now living in Copenhagen, Denmark, he has published a volume of mystical poetry. Qadri is a Tantric Vajrayana yogi and the colors and shapes in his paintings have significance within his spiritual practice. In some works, small circles cluster together, like the dividing cells of a fertilized egg. That shape symbolizes not only femininity and life, it also references the domes of stupas (Buddhist shrines). The scratched lines are "the underlying tension of a life filled with attachments. He adopted his guru Bhikham Giri who was a temple dancer and musician. "Before my first exhibition, I had a vision that my name would not fit under my painting-"Sohan Singh" did not look right. That's when "Qadri" came into my head. The master himself was not using that name-it was not important to him. The choice of that Hindu-Muslim, Sanskrit-Persian combination thrilled me later. All Quadri's paintings have holes. "It is the form of bindu, dot — Sanskrit word for germ or seed, from which the whole of creation comes into being, the word also connotes a meditative state in yogic traditions. In their art, yogis distill the observable world into geometric symbols that serve as objects of contemplation. Such basic geometrical figures as the point, straight line, circle, triangle, and square have a symbolic value in representing the basic energies of the universe. Combined in increasingly complex figures to represent particular forces or qualities embodied in some aspect of creation, evolution, dissolution the flow of color energy "renders potent and dynamic silence. Qadri's paintings are similar to the diagrams of the universe that medieval craftsmen inlaid into the floors of great cathedrals. But rather than being created by cutting hard, resistant stone, Qadri's cosmologies are made with textile dyes doctored with glycerin and ink that spread and mix on wet, pliable paper. Light holds the central position. Blacks serve to make his colors seem brighter by contrast to such strong darks. This exhibit is stunning and spiritual. You can catch "The Presence of Being" at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery located at 547 West 27th street until November 10th. It is a F.A.C.T that art can sooth a savage beast and bring you into the presence of a higher being. I leave you with one of his poems to do just that and then you too can see that it is indeed a F.A.C.T.

















Every tree has a Siddharata
Sitting quietly under and ponder,
Every morning a Siddharata
is Enlightened

Moment by moment
his eyes droop
to look deep down within,
— a nameless smile spreads on his face,
his silence deepens deeper,

Full and empty under the Tree
a man & a human still sits there,
Who will care and spare
a moment to SEE?

The Tree in The Valley
is close to THE BUDDHA
Watching and Witnessing
in silence — indifferent

— Sohan Qadri, 1997