Intent; outer, inner and secret

A seated meditator cradles a hand-blown glass orb, surrounded by a gathering of others. Each has been formed through the artist’s breath, giving shape to an otherwise invisible space. The transparency and fragility of the glass belie the physical effort of its making and the deliberate intention brought to that process.

Drawing on the outer, inner and secret dimensions of Tibetan Buddhist practice, the work brings together the visible act of holding, the inward cultivation of intention and an aspiration to understand the ground from which perceptions arise. The breath-formed orbs are at once objects and vessels, their hollow interiors giving pocketed presence to something that cannot be directly seen.

The work forms part of Damchö’s practice-based PhD investigation into whether intent, deliberately cultivated and enacted as an artistic proposition, can itself constitute an artwork. Through the fashioning, performing and documenting of intention, the artist examines how an inward orientation of mind and heart, directed toward altruistic thought and action, might become perceptible without being reduced to its material outcome.