Practice
Circle, centre, colour.
A painting that does not depict the world, but offers a way to experience it.
Mandala, a Sanskrit word, is first a figure: a circle, a point, a rosette. It is also a meditation tool, shared across Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi and Christian traditions. For Claire Duval, painting a mandala is not illustrating an idea. It is going through it, layer by layer, from the circumference to the centre.
Each painting starts with an orientation: north, south, east, west. Symmetry is not decorative, it organises mental space. Colours are not chosen to be pretty, they are tuned like an instrument. The centre is not painted last: it is present from the first stroke.
Working on wood rather than canvas is not a detail. Wood already has its own grain, its veins, its breathing. Paint settles on it with less gestation than on canvas, as if the material welcomed the motif. The wooden panel is itself an object, almost a piece of meditation furniture.
“ The circle represents the stillpoint, the dimensionless and peaceful centre within us. Around this centre, life whirls in its vast kaleidoscope of forms and colours. ”