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| Sunday, 28 September 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Sufis are "mystics" on the path to the Beloved, a direction to the higher source of wisdom within the human heart. By contrast, chocolate is something tangible, sweetening the heart through the body and brain. Josephine Balakrishnan's art exhibition "Sufi Chocolate" which is being held at the Barefoot Gallery, glimpses into this inner and outer bliss in a dreamlike state.
"Sufi Chocolate" travels to ART21, the leading contemporary gallery in Palo Alto, California for a reception on November 21, 2003. |
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| Produced by Lake House |
If the price set on chocolate can represent the economy then perhaps
"Sufi Chocolate" can represent the financial path to the heart.
A new medium, pigmented ink in resin as well as traditional oils on paper,
are used in the paintings. The images are described as dreamlike glimpses.
Josephine's colour sense weaves both California and tropical
sensitivities. She uses visual dissidence, the ability of the human mind
to resolve incongruent concepts and materials to reveal meaning and
encompasses cultural and secular symbolism with visual imagery reflective
of both eastern and western cultures.
Having spent the first four years of her life switching continents
(Asia, Europe, South America and finally North America) her family settled
down in a small town in Central California called Arroyo Grande. There her
mother told her elaborate stories of her family in Sri Lanka. As a child
Josephine spent long hours using playing cards to tell herself stories
trying to decipher her strange personal universe. Coming from a family of
artists she was given art materials from those early days, which provided
for her the tools to explore her connection with the rest of the world.
Thus being connected to two worlds, she has been showing her
aspirations of art, in both the east and the west for the past 25 years.
Her works extends to multimedia, which was sold in the stores of 22 major
museums, including the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Centre
and the Guggenheim Museum. She has been awarded an art residency in
November at the Bedford Art Centre in Walnut Creek as well as a merit
award at the California State Exposition of Art.
