ABOUT CYCLES AND CIRCLES

Phoebe Sutcliffe

 

I started painting in circles when I was probably three; I started taking circles seriously around the age of 20.

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I studied Photography at Manchester School of Art, my passion being the beautiful overlap of colours in manual processed double exposures. In Manchester, procrastinating about my dissertation I found a book nestled away in the library: Buddah Mind in Contemporary Art. I still sleep next to it and share with others today: The essays drew me into a world of artist perspectives, the writers are curators, art critics, educators, and Buddhist commentators in psychology, literature, and cognitive science. And that is where a seed was sewn.

 

Travelling through countries including spending half a year in India my creative inner world was turned upside down and inside out. Sensory overload, spilling colours and smells and visual explosions, travelling when I was younger was both eye opening and so.very.overwhelming. Art grounded me. Sharing pictures with families as gratitude when money was refused. Back in the UK I didn't think "I want to draw mandalas" they just spilled out of me and so I just carried on.

 

Through time I have learnt and see the impact of process comes first, and is the gold, the product is what it is. I learnt to see art not as a pursuit; not to be different, be ground breaking, be something and rather...just be. And then comes flow - and if flow is what I feel when I am 1cm away from a giant pink circle, my breath united, my eyes lit up - I'd like more of that.

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In 2014 I studied Art Therapy foundation at Roehampton University, a place dedicated to the psychology of Carl Jung. Our Carl loves mandalas, his theories and philosophies combining the pursuit of individuation through transformation - and how he brought this forward into an alchemical process - ten seeds were sewn.

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The alchemy is real, the deep work I do with others and myself is only reflected in the circles I paint.  I choose to continue making these giant gongs for others, they hold transformation of the seasons, identity, our universe. 

 

And if that's not enough, then the opposite is also true. A mandala is one, a shape and a seed.

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