We are living in the age of Hollywood Buddhism and celebrity yoga. There is an unprecedented proliferation of spas, yoga studios, and meditation centers replete with lines of clothing and accessories tailored to accentuate the sexier aspects of spiritual practice. The desperate need among advertisers to divine our intimate truths has indelibly linked consumerism to culture. A mandala is a universal, non-religious tool for meditation typically composed of highly decorative, symmetrical patterns. While a mandala is not sacred per se, they do appear, in some form, in almost every religion or spiritual practice. The carefully chosen symbols and imagery of a traditional mandala imbue it with a meaningfulness that provides guidance on ones path to enlightenment. Thanks in part to electronic media and social networking sites we are continually monitored, manipulated and seduced by marketing campaigns that appeal to our conceits as consumers. The imagery on each plastic bag is designed by advertisers to cause instant association with worldly acquisitions. My choice of media, plastic bags, imbues my seemingly irreverent mandalas with a contemporary narrative that allows me to analyze the activity of consumerism as a spiritual encounter. These mandalas are intricately crafted, large scaled works that reference painting, but are created by collaging pieces of detritus from a consumerist society in a way that exposes the efforts of advertisers to influence the masses. The resulting works, each crafted from thousands of pieces of used plastic bags imprinted with familiar logos and slogans can be both humorous and unnerving. These large ebullient mandalas are a manic explosion of consumerist excess that contain and brand our passions while attesting to our belief in the American Dream.
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