You are not something. You are happening.

“Man ought not to work for any why, not for God nor for his glory nor for anything at all that is outside of him, but only for that which is his being, his very life within him.”

(From: K. Coomaraswamy A. (1935), The transformation of Nature in Art, p. 88, Kettering, OH: Angelico Press)

In 2020, in the exhibition "A única inocência é não pensar", Samuel Vanderveken showed a series of drawings and paintings inspired by images that had spontaneously appeared in the imagination of his relaxed mind.

Searching for the source of those images, the artist has since then further immersed himself in non-dualistic Hindu (Kashmir Shaivism) and Buddhist (Mahayana) philosophies, with a particular focus on comprehending the concept of “Emptiness" (voidness, śūnya, śūnyatā,...). For his studies of Educational Master, he incorporated this research into a thesis linked to art and education (LINK). In this research, he came to the personal conclusion that "Emptiness" had to be something like uncontrolled, limitless freedom.

Fascinated by his own conclusion, Samuel decided to verify this theory in practice. During the summer of 2022, he went on a ten-day (Mahasi) Vipassana retreat to do just that. His preliminary insight, after this intense experience of ten days with 10 to 12h of meditation a day, is that "Emptiness", insofar as anything can be said about it, is that which lies behind our sense constructed reality. It refers to something at complete rest; disconnected from knowledge, concept or experience. A place where nothing is, everything can become, but nothing has to be. Where consciousness can return to, to become detached from any construct, real or imaginary. "Emptiness" is that which was there before the creation of the universe and that to which the entire universe will eventually return. The origin of All that is now, ever was and is yet to come. That which we are and are part of. Everything.

However, Samuel Vanderveken is also aware that, in reality, nothing can be said about "Emptiness". Thus, if the preceding explanation is difficult to understand, this description is in all certainty closer to the truth than something that could be understood and described.

To share the knowledge, insights and experiences gained, the artist set out to find a visual way of expressing them. In the course of his theoretical research, he thus happened to come across several images from the 17th to 19th centuries, from Rajasthan and other parts of India, in books on "Yoga and Tantra Art", which referred to "Emptiness" as he himself understood and researched them. For some of his new works, Samuel used these images as a starting point, with some very minor modifications. His desire is to use them to bring renewed attention to older but valuable philosophies about our world and reality. And by sticking closely to the source images, no injustice can be done to the truth that the images, in colour and form, hold. Besides these works, the artist also made his own creations based on his personal (meditative) insights.

One such insight is that reality is "happening" at every moment. Everything is in constant motion and change. We ourselves too are changing/"happening" from moment to moment. So you are not something that is concrete or fixed. You are something that is happening, in the happening of the whole universe.

You are not something. You are happening.

“The yogi-artist’s work culminates in a simultaneous diagram of himself and the world within which he is a world. The mind of the yogi thus becomes a bridge between the physics of the atom and the orbits of the planetary bodies. It is in this sense that his art literally yokes together (the Sanskrit root of the word yoga, ‘yuj’, means ‘yoke’) in fine fusion the polarities of the subjective and objective, the microcosmic and macrocosmic, the analytical and the synthetic, the simple and the synergetic, the abstract and the physical; as it were, the male and the female principles in this great dance of creation.

Yoga art offers the total perception: All is One”

(From: Mookerjee A. (1975), Yoga Art , p. 43, Boston: New York Graphic Society)