Artist's Statement

Domestic Pilgrimage: a journey from Samsara (the delusions of suffering) to Nirvana (enlightenment).

Domestic Pilgrimage begins with Addicted to Capitalism, poking fun at the ubiquitous ways our society distorts our awareness, and impairs our ability to be aware, through socially sanctioned addictions.

Love Falls is about looking to romantic relationships to feel more connected and alive, yet those relationships are often sabotaged by our confusion about the nature of reality and the transience of emotions.

Charnal Grounds is a memorial to the dharma (teaching) of staying present in the darkest depths of despair, without escaping into addictions and distractions; coming to understand that suffering is as transient as pleasure and of no more or less importance.

The mobius Meditation Journal has no boundaries between inside and outside. Meditation involves a series of repeated attempts to quiet that part of the mind that is so busy distinguishing between ‘like’ and ‘not like’. When the mind is stilled to a blank page, the breath connects you without judgement.

Do the Dishes takes the discipline of meditation into daily, domestic life. Being fully present in each moment, no matter how mundane, brings great peace.

Sky in the City takes that awareness for a walk, beyond the sanctuaries of the meditation space and home, into the crowded concrete city.

The final two works in the Domestic Pilgrimage were inspired by the enthusiastic conversations taking place between Buddhist psychology and the frontiers of western science, concerning the nature and origins of life, the universe and consciousness.

One of the defining features of all life on earth, past and present, is Membranes, those permeable boundaries that paradoxically both spatially contain and connect all beings, from slime to humans.

Another commonality is DNA/RNA, the purpose of which is to communicate information across time. Like books, DNA tells stories that reminisce all the way back to our bacterial origins in primordial oceans. You are Beautiful responds to intersections between the searches for inner truths through contemplative practices and the inner truths being decoded from our DNA.

Photographs by Louise Simms.