Philip Edward Harding
Thangka Project, 2018
Media: Digital image
Size: 18,000 x 10,800 pixels (60 x 36" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Note: I had a 44 x 28 inch (40 x 24 inch with a two inch boarder) archival pigment on canvas print made of this banner and the Blue Green Jade banner below. For now these are one of a kind prints and I have no plans to make more. The other variations have only been printed as small inkjet prints and note cards but all of them are available for large archival prints on request.
Title: Blue Green Jade Banner (Thangka)
Media: Digital image
Size: 18,000 x 10,800 pixels
(maximum print size is 60 x 36" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Orange Thangka
Media: Digital image
Size: 12,150 x 6,750 pixels (40.5 x 22.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Blue Water Thangka
Media: Digital image
Size: 12,150 x 6,750 pixels (40.5 x 22.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Fire Orange Thangka
Media: Digital image
Size: 12,600 x 7,200 pixels (42 x 24" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Blue Sky Thangka
Media: Digital image
Size: 21,600 x 11,400 pixels (72 x 38" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Blue Sky Thangka (alternate with boarder)
Media: Digital image
Size: 21,750 x 11,550 pixels (72.5 x 38.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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For a detail click here.
Title: Green Banner
Media: Digital image
Size: 18,150 x 9750 pixels (60.5 x 32.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Earth Orange Banner
Media: Digital image
Size: 18,150 x 9750 pixels (60.5 x 32.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Pale Blue green Banner
Media: Digital image
Size: 21,750 x 11,550 pixels (60.5 x 32.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Pale Blue Banner (Thangka)
Media: Digital image
Size: 18,150 x 9750 pixels (60.5 x 32.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Pale Orange Banner (Thangka)
Media: Digital image
Size: 18,150 x 9750 pixels (60.5 x 32.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Pink with Yellow Banner (Thangka)
Media: Digital image
Size: 21,750 x 11,550 pixels (60.5 x 32.5" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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Title: Deep Magenta Banner (Thangka)
Media: Digital image
Size: 23,100 x 12,600 pixels (60 x 36" at 300dpi)
Date: 2018
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In Tibetan art images such as mandalas, portraits of Lamas and icons of Buddhist deities are often mounted in a hanging scroll or Thangka format. They take pieces of fine fabrics, often richly brocaded silks and they will frame the mandala or icon in these beautiful fabrics. The Thangkas can then be rolled up when not in use.
As part of my mandala project early in 2018 I started making patterns out of the mandalas and would then layer the patterns back into the irregular shapes of the mandalas. It was then a natural progression to use some of these patterns as back drops for the mandalas. The first one to get this treatment was Red Earth Banner, the first image pictured above. In addition to the main body of the mandala at the top of the banner I created a complex repeat system using three different sizes of three different variations on the primary mandala. When I first created the image the background felt too bright so between the foreground mandala and the background pattern I added a translucent gray layer. Then at the bottom I cut three holes. I'm not entirely sure what compelled me to do so but it felt right and seemed to tie into certain ideas of object and void. In later images I would add three small copies of the upper mandala in place of the holes. Again, I'm not entirely sure why I did this beyond a sense of balance but I also see in these the idea "as above, so below" and three copies echo the idea of the Trinity - the three which are the same as the one. In the later banners, or Thangkas, the works became a bit more decorative with greater emphasis on aesthetic beauty. I'm comfortable with this because these images are not part of any religious tradition but a an artistic one - art for its own sake. I am not a religious or spiritual person but I am interested in certain states of being or consciousness which we generally think of as spiritual. For me these states are just part of what makes the human experience rich and rewarding and we don't need to construct a religion to experience or explain them.