Bodhisattva
by Kristin Serafini
23 April 2008
acrylic on canvas
18″ x 24″ plus frame

$500.00

I began this painting more than a month ago, just after finishing Sometimes in Nature. It wasn’t one that came quickly. It sat half finished on the easel for a long time. Now that I think of it, there were actually three stages to this painting. First, the background. I scrubbed down the canvas in the back yard with a drywall screen and a handful of pumice soap. After hosing off the grit and the remains of the terrible oil painting I was trying to exorcise, I let it dry in the sun and then brought the canvas back in the house, ready for something new. I hadn’t succeeded in removing all of the old pigment, so as I worked the new gesso into the old surface, I left some of the neutral tones exposed. I then layered on a series of earthy gold washes, so that it became hard to tell where the remnants of the old painting ended and the new one began. I thought for a while that I might do another painting relating to the Teton Trip – an enlarged journal page perhaps. But that is not what happened.

I turned instead back to the idea of creating a series about the Buddhist monks. Again they were in the news – this time in Tibet. As I was writing the artist statement for Sangha I (finally!), and doing some online research to remind myself of the particular dates and political circumstances surrounding the Burmese monks’ protests, I came across a deeply touching photo of a young monk crouching in prayer. He seemed to be worshipping in some sort of sanctuary, as his slender arms, saffron robe and innocent face were illuminated by dozens of candles at his feet. I printed out the picture and painted the monk onto the canvas. This was the second stage of the painting.

I had to think carefully about how to properly connect the figure with the background; I was very conscious that they had to stand together as one thing in the end. So the painting stayed half finished for a while as I pondered this idea. I eventually decided to add an anchoring shadow beneath the figure, and then to weave the whole piece together with several complicated layers of rust and gold tones, interspersed with coats of clear UV protective varnish. The effect turned out to be a luminous picture of prayer.

A bodhisattva is “one who is able to reach nirvana, but delays doing so out of compassion for suffering beings” (Oxford American Dictionary). The title of this piece speaks to the idea of innocent enlightenment and compassion as a way forward out of calculated oppression.

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