Sutra
Sutra
2011, oil on canvas, 48 × 48 in

I believe compassion is not something a stranger does for another stranger, but instead describes a relationship we enjoy with the world around us. Every day we are the beneficiaries of a compassionate universe, that supplies us with light and air, water and food, and often love and company, all for free. Compassion is the result of understanding that without one another we have no meaning. Our existence, our consciousness, our materiality, the very concepts of "we" and "I" owe everything to the arrangement of many living elements within a spatial frame. Compassion is also a mysterious instinct granted to humans, expressed in our ability to perceive and respect the sacredness of all life. I have placed my figures - young women, who represent the tantric goddess Tārā and for me all that is graceful and beautiful in a human soul - in the company of other strange, living creatures, so the viewer knows they are related to one another, care one for the other, depend on each other, regardless of scale or visibility.