Leeanne Crisp

Rose Mandalas for the Time of Covid

My response to the pandemic was to quietly mark time/hold time/be outside time?

I started painting circular forms.  These were arising from my response to drought and bushfire.  Burning earth/ fireball/irradiating sun/cooling moon/blood moon, which preceded Covid.

They grew from the turning wheel of time, bodily containers, breasts, the rose, sex and the mandala. 

They embodied forces.  Gravity, attraction, germination.

The colour was a balm and also a vital sensory presence.

The forms hang in a disembodied space.  I can separate them as studies to consider them like objects or sculptures. 

The themes are of meditation and contemplation, the externalization of anxiety and fear  and the idea of hope and revitalization.