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The Melt
The Melt

The Melt

Artist (Nepalese, b. 1968)
Date2017
MaterialsAcrylic, ink, and gold on canvas
DimensionsH. 40 1/2 in x W. 43 1/2 in, H. 102.9 cm x W. 110.5 cm
Credit LineMuseum purchase, Mortimer-Harvey Fund
Object number2017.44
DepartmentHimalayan Art
ClassificationsPainting
On View
On view
LocationGallery 12
More Information

What does it feel like to move from life as we know it, or embodiment and manifestation, into . . . another realm? We can only imagine, and perhaps thank goodness for that. Yet maybe it involves a kind of dissolution of known structures; key among them, of course, are personality, body, and most importantly in this painting, time—for that is what we witness here, as the formal iconographies of the ancient Tibetan deity Mahakala extrude themselves into (or out of?) our temporal horizon. What on earth— or after it—is going on here?

Great Time, or Mahakala in Sanskrit, has been mathematically transformed by visionary artist Tsherin Sherpa. In the process, Sherpa has imagined how Mahakala, the very archetypal embodiment of time, might experience its own dissolution and with it the inevitable dimension-distorting dysphoria.

Along with Mahakala, do our own personalities dissolve when we enter other worlds, literal or metaphorical? Or does the dissolution of time reveal a vast and unsuspected eternity?

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