The garden of beauty and balance Drawing

I am a South African artist living in White River, a small town 30 kilometers from the Kruger National Park in the Lowveld region of Mpumalanga province. My body of work portrays a life-long fascination with circles and curves as well as a personal struggle with and acknowledgement of imperfection. I cannot remember a time when I was not acutely aware of and attracted to circles and curves. Humans are not only surrounded by circular designs in man-made structures and nature, but our souls exist within bodies compiled of curves. And who could imagine the soul as being square? Human life starts with a round egg cell and ends when the circle of live is completed, featuring many circles in between. Think of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man in which he scientifically applies Roman architect Vitruvius’s theories to artfully illustrate the navel as the centre of the human body – when a circle is drawn with the navel as the axis point, it encompasses both outstretched arms and legs. Yes, there is also a square involved and the science and symbolism behind the sketch is must more intricate than presented by a circle – geometry plays a huge role in the illustration and accompanying text. And, strictly speaking, circles will not be able to exist without squares. But I must admit that the body perfectly fitting inside the circle speaks to my innermost being much louder than the square. Apart from the wonder of our curvaceous bodies, we are surrounded by circles, curves, and geometry in both the microscopic ánd larger cosmos. The most vividly outspoken evidence of this is probably illustrated by the golden ratio which is sometimes called “nature’s divine blueprint”. I call my drawings “mandalas”. The Tibetan word for mandala means “that which encircles a centre”. A centre in this context symbolises meaning and that which encircles it is a representation of the meaning. Thus, a mandala is in its simplest form a depiction of the deeper meaning it represents. It is an object of balance and harmony and creating one brings inner peace and perspective on difficult issues. My artworks do not necessarily revolve around a centre on paper, but rather a conceptual centre which expresses my personal emotions, thoughts, desires and intuitions at a specific moment. It also depicts the way in which I perceive the world and comments on both the imperfections and the beautiful. Thus, each artwork portrays a time of meditation and reflection.