Hidden Geometries (2023→)

Hidden Geometries is a series of digital and painted works inspired by the precise geometry that underlies the thousand-year-old tradition of Tibetan Buddhist thangka painting. When I began studying thangka painting in 2002 with Tsherin Sherpa in San Francisco, one of the first insights he shared was the unique geometric grid that forms each image’s foundation, guiding the artist's hand with purpose and precision.

Like the invisible structures that underlies reality, these grids have ensured the consistent representation of Buddhist figures and deities across centuries and cultures as the tradition evolved from India to Nepal and Tibet. The grids’ “sacred geometry” captivated me and became the inspiration for a series of abstract artworks exploring the unseen structure behind Vajrayana Buddhism's devotional art.

In 2023, I began reimagining these “hidden geometries” in works that delve into the inner experiences of meditators. These pieces seek to capture the vivid—yet imperfect—visualizations meditators form when engaging with Buddhism’s richly detailed devotional imagery.

Composing the grids

I began by overlaying the traditional grids atop deity line drawings, making decisions as to how the grids could become compelling abstract compositions on their own. I started with Shakyamuni Buddha (the historical Buddha) whose grid is entirely symmetrical, expanding and aligning his grid into a rectangular composition.

Drawing on Clay

Soon, I wanted to step away from the computer to work with more natural materials, and I began to draw the grids with India ink on clay boards.

To convey the fluidity and fuzziness of a meditator's focus, I wrote custom software that samples a low-resolution image of a thangka through the grid geometry. For the first image of Shakyamuni Buddha, I manually constructed the mapping of geometry to the colored regions of this low-resolution texture.

The ongoing series of digital prints for Shakyamuni Buddha explore variations sampled from the infinite possibly of mappings through the same low-resolution texture.

Inducing a Meditative Experience

Framed, wall-mounted screens running a version of my custom software create long and infinite loops through the “state space” of the hidden geometries. The first, completed in late 2024, loops through variations that arise repeatedly from a single-colored void, complicate, and then dissolving back into that void.

Continuing the Thangka Painting Tradition

When I studied with Tsherin Sherpa, he explained that thangkas were traditionally painted using finely ground mineral pigments and bovine glues. I asked him whether I could obtain these materials to paint with myself, but he told me that he “only had enough materials for one lifetime”—those his father had brought with him when he escaped from Tibet and later shared with his son.

I couldn’t stop thinking about these materials and the idea of continuing the thousand-year-old tradition of thangka painting, blending modern imagery with traditional materials. Eventually, through a Japanese American painter I know who works with similar materials, I learned that you can obtain similar ground minerals from a supplier in Japan.

Then, through a remarkable series of chance encounters, I found myself invited in 2024 to Enlightenment Studio in Nepal, where I learned the traditional thangka painting techniques of canvas preparation, geometry, paint mixing, color, and shading directly from masters of each discipline. There, I completed my first painting using these traditional materials.