| Arlene Shechet’s art work uses familiar icons of Buddhist philosophy: seated Buddhas, Buddhist heads, mandalas, and Buddhist temples. But her work is not about Buddhist religion or even art history. Rather, it is about the process of constructing an image for contemplation. “I kind of stumbled onto the Buddha,” she recounts. “ The image was incidental to my process. It’s a big idea, and in the four years I’ve been working with it, I got deeper and deeper into it.” Shechet is know for her plaster sculptures depicting seated Buddhas and Buddhist heads, many of which -– like Fleeting Head (Left)–look abstract at first glance. Often presented in groups, the works are colored with “skins” of paint that the artist embeds into the still-wet plaster. Lately, she has supplemented these statues with mandalas made of blue-and-white paper pulp to resemble blueprints of the ancient Buddhist temples called stupas. Her newest works include plaster renderings of stupas that accentuate the parallels between temple architecture and the human body, and the idea that both are essentially places for contemplation–as is the art gallery. Shechet, in making thoughtful use of all three, brings surprising vigor and immediacy to the ethereal philosophy. At Bernard Toale Gallery in Boston, September 4 through October 4. |