ALOKA

To spend a life devoted to drawing was the only thing that made any kind of sense to me and, miraculously, I have been able to do that. By drawing, I mean any kind of activity starting with simple mark-making. Just watching a line extend from your pen or pencil across a piece of paper – or any surface – seems to me a magical confirmation that we are alive and capable of effecting the space in which we exist. It can build a vocabulary and a language by which we can explore realms of undefinable meaning and go beyond all limitations.

Early on I had acquired this idea that if I devoted myself totally to my work, not only would I get better at what I was doing but I would also become a better person. Quite where this notion had come from, I have no idea, but after spending all the 1960s in various art schools and then starting to teach, it slowly began to dawn on me that this approach was far too simplistic and impractical and had only resulted in me spending years racing up dead ends. Eventually, I discovered the discipline that is popularly termed Buddhism which provided a framework expansive enough to enable me to avoid the more subjective traps that had previously caught me out when thinking too narrowly about Art.

There are various types of work shown here. There are my main experiments in painting, trying to get to grips with my experience and ways of perceiving. There are my Doodle Books, which started when my health collapsed and I was incapable of larger work, retreating into my sort of core activity, whilst coming to terms with the extreme loss of energy. There are collections of drawings done for various Buddhist publications over the years and then there are paintings of Buddhist iconography, produced to help people with their own practice of Buddhism. These have also helped me address the various issues involved in how these practices might present themselves in the modern world, where the values the images symbolise are increasingly undervalued and even ignored.

~ Aloka
October 20th 2021