John Berger writes: “to emigrate is always to dismantle the Centre of the world, and so to move into a lost, disoriented one of fragments.

”Perhaps it has been particularly the idea of the hostile landscape, or rather seascape, that must be traversed by those searching for peace and better lives that has influenced me to create Jambudvipa: Map for Lost Souls. In Jain, Buddhist and Hindu Cosmology, Jambudvipa (The Rose Apple Tree Island) is the island or continent of the terrestrial world where ordinary human beings live. Surrounded by the Lavanasamudra or salty ocean whose swirling movement is regulated by the 4 tides from the 4 directions, from the North, South, East & West (traditionally depicted as the 4 patalas or pots), Jambudvipa is the only place where one can achieve enlightenment and as such provides an opportunity for salvation, for peace, for relief.

Drawing on tradition, I have created a cosmological map, as a form of abstract yantra, or sacred energized meditational space, where the central bindu, Jambudvipa, is the focal point surrounded by the frothing, fragmenting, iterating waves of the salty ocean. Here I am interested in pairing down, pulling apart and exploring traditional imagery, sacred form and colour. In an age so frequently blighted by tragedy and horror without, this is a map to seek consolation and peace within