Artist Journal: Ahavani Mullen
Photo by Ahavani Mullen
Working at Tusen Takk has connected me more deeply with our natural world, and especially with the landscape which surrounds us here, something encouraged by the design of the spaces. To live and work in structures that were so meticulously, generously created provides a most supportive vessel, and brings forward a sense of expansion which directly affects my work.
I identify as a painter, but question what I am actually doing as I make these new works. I set up circumstances and conditions, allow, respond, collect and record. What does it mean to remove myself from the event and allow materials to react naturally, in their own way, beyond my control?
Photo by Tom Peckham
Photo by Ahavani Mullen
Most of the marks in the paintings are not made by my hand, but by nature itself through pigments acting as sediment. Outside the studios at Tusen Takk several paintings use the canvas itself as a vessel, allowing pools of pigment to settle over several days. Exposed to the wind of the forest and the sound of the waves from the lake, a layer of natural sound is added.
Time is a prominent element of this work. The time that passes as water evaporates, as pigments settle, is something to consider. How does the viewer’s experience of the work unfold? I do appreciate a slow reveal and a growing discovery in a painting.
Here at Tusen Takk, my work continues to explore the ways subtle energies and ephemeral vibration can be made visible using energetically-charged paint to create fields of color, light and texture. I use sound vibration to imprint a specific quality in the work, by directing audio inside the water I paint with.
The painting Aum № 4 is charged with that sacred Sanskrit syllable “Aum”. Within multiple traditions “Aum” is considered the “seed-sound of the universe”. It prefaces all mantras from the Vedas, which hold the most ancient body of knowledge known to humanity. I have been drawn to these ancient texts over the past several years, as well as to the Upanishads. Welcoming these sacred texts into the work is my way of connecting more deeply to their wisdom, and including Sri Chinmoy’s musical interpretation of these mantras allows me to honor him in the process too.
Ahavani Mullen, Aum № 4, 2022, 78 x 78 inches
Ahavani Mullen, Delight № 1 (detail), 2022, 66 x 66 inches
Delight № 1 carries the following mantra from the Upanishads:
Anandaddhyeva khalvimani bhutani jayante
Anandena jatani jivanti
Anandam prayantyabhisamvisanti
From Delight we came into existence.
In Delight we grow.
At the end of our journey’s close, into Delight we retire.
Lead me from the unreal to the Real is imprinted with the following mantra from the Upanishads:
Asato ma sad gamaya
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya
Mrtyor mamrtam gamaya
Lead me from the unreal to the Real.
Lead me from darkness to Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality.
Ahavani Mullen, Lead me from the unreal to the Real in progress, 2022, 67 x 67 inches
Other works incorporate sounds native to the landscape here. For the work Birdsong, I created a recording of the sounds of the surrounding forest 17 minutes before sunrise, and used it to charge the water used in this painting.
Ahavani Mullen, Birdsong, 2022, 34 x 26 inches
Another text that informs this work is a book I read many years ago, The Hidden Messages in Water, by Dr. Masaru Emoto, about his studies of ice crystals on a molecular level. His finding that water has the ability to imprint information, that it responds to our thoughts and feelings, to consciousness, is really central to this project.
Ahavani Mullen, Gayatri № 1, 2022, 29 x 19 inches
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