Field of Color: Tantra Drawings from India

Field of Color: Tantra Drawings from India presented thirty small-scale works from the collection of poet Franck André Jamme. In the twenty-first century, Tantra drawings were primarily created in the state of Rajasthan. With origins in Northeastern India, created and re-created over centuries in the tradition of Hindu Tantrism, a small branch of Hinduism, Tantric drawings are meant to aid in meditation. They are based on illustrations first known to have appeared in seventeenth-century treatises on Tantrism, called "tantras," which were copied by subsequent generations and eventually became independent of the texts. The drawings featured in the exhibition were the descendants of this tradition dating back at least 400 years.

In the practice of Tantrism, the observer strives to de-condition one's being to achieve transcendence. Active meditation on Tantra images complements the main focus of the religious practice: the recitation of mantras. Painted in gouache, watercolor, or tempera, contemporary examples of Tantra drawings are often made at home, and for personal use in the home. The use of color reflects the highly symbolic worldview of Hindu Tantrism, representing sources of energy that expand, contract, and gather together in the creation of all forms and processes.

The works featured in this exhibition at The Drawing Center were made by anonymous tantrikas, or devotional meditators, who animated their images through focus and visualization, and the composition of specific colors and shapes facilitated perception of forces present in various phenomena and states of being.