I just finished my major project "the seven prayers" which dominated my life for the better part of the last four years. Many changes in my life accompanied and influenced the work. Deep inside me sometimes I started to doubt that I would ever bring it to an end.
The whole series consists of 21 large sized pictures, each one 180x180 cm. Using a specially designed alphabet based on circle segments the seven tryptichen take up motifs of the buddhist Lotus Sutra and represent them as text-pictures.
The old geometrical symbol of perfection, the circle as the smallest denominator for unity, is cut into segments, to form a script. Variations of the no longer as text defined words and word fragments are stripped of their semantic meaning and become indecipherable. But this destruction of the upper layer of language bares a deeper level of meaning which only reveals itself after the habitual attachment is overcome.
The series consists of seven prayers: to the sun (2000-2001), to the earth (1998), to the fire (1999-2000), to the wind (1998), to the lotus flower (1998-1999), to the sea (1998) and to the moon (2000). The choosen colors are in harmony with the seven factors of inspiration of the buddhistic philosophy.
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York, supported the project through a one year grant during 1999-2000.
All the 21 paintings of the finished work are published as an artcard book with the title "the seven prayers" by the Edition Ursache & Wirkung, Vienna, in 2001

seven triptychs dedicated to the Lotus Sutra 1998-2001
paintings: Beate Sandor
texts: Peter Riedl, seven ways to insight the seven factors of inspiration
Regina Kirchweger, the seven prayers
the seven prayers | www.buddhabuch.at | www.amazon.de |