Danmala – Mandala Art by Kathy Klein

Sometimes the social hustle and bustle surrounding the art world almost makes me forget why I love art in the first place. Then, I stumble upon works like the Danmala series by Kathy Klein and I am reminded…

Each of these stunning compositions is a Danmala: in sanskrit ‘dan’ means giver and ‘mala’ is a garland of flowers. Danmala is a giving of flowers circles. They resemble mandalas and their execution follows the same meditative practice.

After spotting a devotional space in the open nature, Kathy Klein immerses herself in pure silence and gathers flowers and other natural objects. She then creates patterns with them. Each Danmala emanates a sense of peaceful grace. The organic arrangement and the elegantly combined explosion of colours release a sense of vibrant vitality. They quietly but powerfully speak of life’s abundance.

These danmalas have taken me back, at the heart of my love for art. Art can come from the most simple source of inspiration, the natural world. And from the most humble and unpretentious response to it, which – I feel – nowadays is not such as straightforward as we can think of.

The sentence ‘Beauty will save the world‘ keeps resonating in my mind while I write. And I suddenly also remember from where the quote comes: it is pronounced by Prince Myshkin – The Idiot of the homonymous novel by Dostoevsky. Call me an idiot if you like, but beauty is something undefinable that seizes the human heart.

Or, as Wayne White would say: Beauty is Embarrassing! And once more, I found that kind of art in these danmalas, just like a few days ago in Iain Blake’s Stone Footsteps.

All images © Copyright danmala : mandala art

Via: Colossal

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