Visual Art: Sahaja Budzilla’s The Soul’s Journey at Friars’ Gate Theatre, Co. Limerick.

Please join us on Saturday 7th September at 7pm to celebrate the opening of The Soul’s Journey – an exhibition of painting and sculpture by Sahaja Budzilla. The exhibition will be opened by artist Brian Maguire.

This exhibition ‘The Souls Journey’ is made up of paintings (2014-2018) and sculptures (2018-2019). For me making art is like the character from the film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ who makes models of mountains. He doesn’t know why he is doing it, but he is compelled to. I came from a hellish background and art was a way out and it continues to be so. My intention is to work against stagnation and move to a deeper understanding of myself and life.

Buddhism has played a big part in my life as well as making art. The two are the same for me. Making art is how I practice Buddhism. It’s not necessarily a kind of Buddhism most people would recognise. To me Buddhism is about being real, being naked and congruent, owning the shadow.

I was a sculptor at Dean Clough Studios in Yorkshire for over ten years working with metal and this was like my first language. When I had to leave my studio, out of necessity I turned to painting and drawing. It was like learning a second language. It felt awkward. It can still feel awkward as I don’t see myself as a painterly painter.

I have developed a graffiti-street-punk style that is congruent with who I am and where I have come from. In the last year, after a break of more than fifteen years, my life is settled enough that I can start making sculptures again. My set up is really basic and that has limited what I can do but that has had its advantages. I have found myself making quite simple sculptures from old metal.

Often the sculptures suggest themselves through the shapes of old tools and pieces of metal. Working with metal for me comes from a different place than painting. A place that is more primal and shamanic and direct.

Through my paintings I am working out what it means to be human and be in relationship to others and to the world with all the struggles and tensions and love inherent in that. The exhibition title The Soul’s Journey comes from the name I gave to a series of three paintings I did in 2018, two of which YoYo Boys and Old Soul are in this exhibition.

Sahaja Budzilla received an Arts and Disability Connect Mentoring award in 2019. He is a visual artist based in Co Limerick and through the scheme is working with visual artist Brian Maguire to forge connections with other artists in Ireland and transition to making large scale public sculptures.

www.sahajaart.com