Vibrating Mandalas

A work of art takes in whatever the artist has to project; it sends out the vibrations from the artist to the spectator. Om Prakash’s paintings, essentially, are rooted in Mandala traditions; they are composite forms with internal structures, and their constituent parts multiply in the process of their interaction or in their pattern formations. According to Chogyan Trungpa, Mandala, in the broad sense, is all encompassing space which accommodates the self-existing cosmic structure, radiating different energies, pacifying, magnetising, increasing, destroying. A Mandala consists of a series of concentric forms suggestive of a passage between different dimensions and ever-changing relationships, both internal and external to its basic structure. The universality of the Mandala, in its one constant is, the principle of the centre. The centre is the beginning and origin of all forms, of all processes, including the extensions of form into time. The basic properties of a Mandala are a centre, symmetry, and cardinal points. The first principle is constant; the latter two vary according to the nature of the particular Mandala. It is a module, exhibiting principles of organity : interrelationship of parts, interdependence of systems, resonance and synchronicity. It is essentially vehicle for concentration so that ‘it may pass beyond its usual limits’. Because ultimately, the Mandala leads its users to visualisation and the realisation of the source of energy within himself. It is ‘a centering technique’ – a process of consciously following a path to one’s own centre. Om Prakash’s Mandala images seem to release energy to the extent that he is concentrating upon and has identified himself with. His working vocabulary of forms is linked symbols : the square, circle, triangle, crescent associated with the elements in nature and of course the point – the centre,. These are not always placed in any traditional order, but juxtaposed according to a perceptual process. The emerging regular forms are symmetrical. Symmetry, as is well known, is one of the ideas by which man throughout the ages has tried to comprehend and create order, beauty and perfection. The geometric concept of symmetry, seen in such forms as bilateral, translatory, rotational, ornamental and crystallographic abstract mathematical idea underlying all these special forms. There is a certain quality of ‘resonance’ in his kaleidoscopic images of rotational symmetry. The masses and spins of the resonating forms are well defined within each sequence which seems to extend from the centre towards the periphery of the pictorial space. These regularities of images is analogous to the drama of form vibrations in the world of atoms. His works possess a certain kinetic energy that emerges from his dynamic and higher forms of symmetry where patterns are reflected in many formal relations; they rotate around the axes and the diagonals of his picture space.

Late – P.N. Mago, Art Critic, Patriot, New Delhi, 8 December 1988