Mandalas

I started to create mandalas in 1999 without knowing anything of them.

Back then my ex-husband David started carving mandala folding-pictures out of wood and I designed the color combinations. At that time, not so much was written about mandalas, no mandala coloring books were published, we could only know them from TV documentaries or travel photos.
For us, mandalas belonged to the world of Buddhists.
I also painted my first mandala painting at that time. Gradually, mandala images began to spread through society in the form of coloring books and healing mandalas, and at first I felt a resistance to continuing with painted mandala images, because everything was over-mandalized.
However, my inner need drew me to mandalas, I always paint spontaneously, I let myself be guided by the voice inside, which in the end did not go silent in my mind.

In 2010, I wrote my final school thesis on art therapy and, above all, work with mandalas, and thanks to it I started to find out much more information. I was fascinated by the way mandalas appeared in C.G.Jung's life. It was he himself who experienced their healing potential and pointed out their importance for our Western society. I understood why the mandala images attracted me, I understood my need coming from within, where exactly the center of the mandala is heading.
I started using mandala images regularly when working with clients, whether children or adults. The first sprinkled mandala paintings were created in the children's hospital as part of the art therapy workshop. Furthermore, mandalas became part of relaxation exercises for children who needed to calm down and concentrate. The mandalas helped them express the things they needed to talk about, but had no idea how to get out. Using the mandala, we learned to name and ventilate emotions with clients.
Now, after many years, when I closed the mandala cycle and the cycle of totem animals opened, the circle once again appeared to me on the canvas.
You will surely find out soon what will be in it and how the circle is related to my first mandala image.

Mandalas and sandpainting

For several years, I participated in the annual ritual of sprinkling colored sand on the mandala, which is located right on the spot, in a former quarry not far from Brno.
The most famous sand-strewn mandalas are found in areas where Buddhism is widespread. There, the monks create huge figures dedicated to some deity, only to destroy the mandala after a few weeks or months of work, thus symbolically pointing out the transience of all earthly phenomena; the cycle of creation and death.

Abundance

(in private collection)

Pleasure

(in private collection)

Heart

(in private collection)

Female Universe

(in private collection)