Solo Exhibition: Following the Footprints
Michelle Favin
Dates: March 30 - May 4, 2024
Reception: Saturday, March 30 | 6 - 8 PM
“When we begin to look for our true mind, we are looking for something without realizing that it is within us already.” - Thich Phuoc Tinh, on The Ten Oxherding Paintings
Glass Rice is proud to present Following the Footprints, Michelle Favin’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. In her latest body of abstract work, Favin draws inspiration from The Ten Oxherding Images, a Zen Buddhist text from the 12th century consisting of ten figurative paintings with short poems accompanying each image. The visual narrative depicts the journey from the early stages of a meditative practice and to ultimately, a return to the original self. In the allegorical paintings, the ox represents the original self and the ox-herder is representative of the part of us that seeks the ever elusive 'original self’.
Through a meditative approach to light, material, and shape, Favin’s work explores how the hand moves when the mind is still - alternating between meditative stillness and embodied states of action. In the artist’s words, "I created these paintings not as someone who has figured out each stage of the journey, but as someone who is in process of living through each stage moment by moment. They are a response and a guide to the overstimulation, stillness, grief and joy all tangled up in our modern world - a way for me to make sense of the environment around me. Despite being presented linearly, I rarely experience the stages as so. I am constantly jumping back and forth, seeking a sense of inner knowing and connection to something far bigger than my own single story.”
Favin’s interpretation of The Ten Oxherding Images are fossilized moments from her experience on this meditative journey - objects of contemplation. Central to each painting is a gradient contained within a shape. In the first painting, a grey box is shrouded by intuitive layers of brown ink, symbolizing the initial search for truth as the practitioner recognizes their separation from their true nature. Using color to visually guide viewers, the gradients begin to change in color - at first a dull grey and morphing into bright hues of orange and burnt red. The change in luminance, color, and movement mark stages of what could be enlightenment, but more importantly, places of compassion and interconnection.
Following the Footprints is a visual guide created by Favin to aid in traversing one’s spiritual journey - an ongoing practice. By the tenth painting, after the journey has been integrated, how does one extend the practice out of the act of creation and into the act of living? The gradients that were once confined break free from the constraints of the square canvas and their forms, ultimately integrating the grey and luminous tones. In this final moment, Favin hints at the idea that what we seek – our true nature, a sense of interconnection, of inner knowing – is within us already. “At every stage of the journey, we were always whole.”
______
The opening reception will run from 6-8 pm on March 30 and is open to the general public for walk-ins. The artist will be in attendance.
Private appointments can be made on our website to view the exhibition after the opening reception through May 4.
Michelle Favin
Dates: March 30 - May 4, 2024
Reception: Saturday, March 30 | 6 - 8 PM
“When we begin to look for our true mind, we are looking for something without realizing that it is within us already.” - Thich Phuoc Tinh, on The Ten Oxherding Paintings
Glass Rice is proud to present Following the Footprints, Michelle Favin’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. In her latest body of abstract work, Favin draws inspiration from The Ten Oxherding Images, a Zen Buddhist text from the 12th century consisting of ten figurative paintings with short poems accompanying each image. The visual narrative depicts the journey from the early stages of a meditative practice and to ultimately, a return to the original self. In the allegorical paintings, the ox represents the original self and the ox-herder is representative of the part of us that seeks the ever elusive 'original self’.
Through a meditative approach to light, material, and shape, Favin’s work explores how the hand moves when the mind is still - alternating between meditative stillness and embodied states of action. In the artist’s words, "I created these paintings not as someone who has figured out each stage of the journey, but as someone who is in process of living through each stage moment by moment. They are a response and a guide to the overstimulation, stillness, grief and joy all tangled up in our modern world - a way for me to make sense of the environment around me. Despite being presented linearly, I rarely experience the stages as so. I am constantly jumping back and forth, seeking a sense of inner knowing and connection to something far bigger than my own single story.”
Favin’s interpretation of The Ten Oxherding Images are fossilized moments from her experience on this meditative journey - objects of contemplation. Central to each painting is a gradient contained within a shape. In the first painting, a grey box is shrouded by intuitive layers of brown ink, symbolizing the initial search for truth as the practitioner recognizes their separation from their true nature. Using color to visually guide viewers, the gradients begin to change in color - at first a dull grey and morphing into bright hues of orange and burnt red. The change in luminance, color, and movement mark stages of what could be enlightenment, but more importantly, places of compassion and interconnection.
Following the Footprints is a visual guide created by Favin to aid in traversing one’s spiritual journey - an ongoing practice. By the tenth painting, after the journey has been integrated, how does one extend the practice out of the act of creation and into the act of living? The gradients that were once confined break free from the constraints of the square canvas and their forms, ultimately integrating the grey and luminous tones. In this final moment, Favin hints at the idea that what we seek – our true nature, a sense of interconnection, of inner knowing – is within us already. “At every stage of the journey, we were always whole.”
______
The opening reception will run from 6-8 pm on March 30 and is open to the general public for walk-ins. The artist will be in attendance.
Private appointments can be made on our website to view the exhibition after the opening reception through May 4.