Life of the Buddha – A modern take by the artist Alison Harper.

Life of the Buddha by Alison Harper, in situ at the Royal Scottish Academy May 2016

Alison Harper is this year’s invited artist at the Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition showing from April 16th until May 25th 2016. She is exhibiting an installation of 32 drawings on Indian Khadi paper circles chronicling the Life Story of the Buddha. The four meter wide and tall installation has pride of place at the RSA in Edinburgh.

Alison Harper and the-Life of the Buddha

This work represents a groundbreaking collection of drawings: probably the first occasion where the Buddha’s story has been retold in the present day and in the West. The retelling of ancient stories in contemporary times and different settings has been often used in Christian art and is an effective device to communicate the essential meanings of a story stripped of the distracting accessories of culture and history. The momentary shock we feel when a familiar ancient character is seen handling modern day objects, such as a TV remote control, helps us connect with the humanity, the like us-ness of the human being, the historical Buddha. As we see this extraordinary individual go through the rituals of growing up and beyond, translated into our time, we realise that, like him, we too can work with and train our minds, our hearts and our ethics. The Buddha’s story is timeless and as relevant today as it was 2,500 years ago.

Life of the Buddha by Alison Harper
Charcoal & Ink on Indian Khadi paper
(click image to expand)

The shape of the story: The installation consists of drawings on handmade paper circles positioned on the wall in the shape of a Dharmachakra – the wheel of the Dharma representing the Buddha’s body of teachings. The circle is significant as a shape for the drawings to be contained in and as a shape for the story to be read by, as the circle in Buddhist philosophy more closely mirrors how insight arises in the mind and body and the non-dualistic thinking that is a central aim of Buddhist practise. Rather than being ‘saved’ in an instant by an external power, Buddhist thought recognises the nature of change being work in progress, the constant repetition over the same material that working on our mind and behaviour requires. In contrast the triangle/spire shape favoured in Christian art, the peak representing the striving to get closer to God up high, reflects more closely a dualistic thinking, a ’me in here and you out there’ approach.

Number 8 and Sunyata:

The circles are positioned in patterns of 8 and 16. Eight is an important number in Buddhism, being the number which describes the main formulation of the Buddha’s teaching – The Noble Eightfold Path^. The central circle is bare, representing Sunyata or emptiness, a central insight into the nature of reality gained by the Buddha when he became enlightened.

“Like a tiny drop of dew or a bubble floating in a stream; Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom or a dream. So is all conditioned existence to be seen” The Diamond Sutra.

Material and size:  The drawings are made on Indian handmade khadi paper, an apt material suggesting impermanence and humility. The installation is four metres in diameter, the size making an impressive impact with the circles attached by pins and hovering an inch or so out from the wall, casting shadows which shift and change.

Recent Review on Alison Harper

Home is were the art is

By Jan Patience for The Herald Scotland

...“Several artist academicians and invited artists exhibit work relevant to the HOME theme. So-called New Glasgow Boy painter, Adrian Wiszniewski, invited his Glasgow School of Art peer from the 1980s, Alison Harper (once dubbed a New Glasgow Girl), to exhibit.

This is a rare opportunity to see London-based Harper’s work in Scotland. A practising Buddhist, Harper is the main art consultant on BBC’s primetime art show The Big Painting Challenge.

Harper’s Life of Buddha is a giant work some four and a half metres by four and a half metres, which according to Wiszniewski, is floral ‘but not in a twee way’.

“It is a beautiful, delicate piece of work,” he says. “Within the work there are circles which are about the life of Buddha. Like a storyboard – but not linear. It has all the energy of floral growth but it’s fragile at the same time.”...

Alison Harper is a contemporary artist, teacher and co-founder of the Essential School of Painting …Read more..