Paper Shrines

Here is a selection of the “paper shrines” featured in OSGH publications including Kumano Kodo, VOID MACHINES, and elsewhere. Some of these papers shrines are available as a print (approx. 13" x 10"), but not all of them. Email for availability. Each is $35 (shipping included) and individually signed.

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These paper shrines combine esoteric motifs from high and low culture to create living mandalas. Inspired by Philip K. Dick’s claim that the divine is to be most readily found in the “trash stratum” of culture, these shrines suggest a new visual language for the sacred that is firmly rooted in vernacular media. The artworks were collaged with scissors and glue with materials taken from manga, comics, and mass-market publications on Persian Rugs. No computers were used in the creation of these "paper shrines". 

Beyond the materials, the collage compositions were inspired by the tradition of Japanese mandara, a transliteration of the Sanskrit term mandala. Dating back to the 9th century, the mandara was used by Buddhist priests and monastics to evangelize the spiritual rewards associated with pilgrimage. The collages presented here reflect the particularities of this visual culture as it has developed in Japan over the last millennium. Specifically, these collage mandaras are not organized around a celestial deity, who is encircled by a retinue of affiliate gods, as is the case of Indian and Tibetan mandalas. Rather, the collage mandaras that appear within this text offer a panorama of the sacred forces that populate, and thereby compete for influence, in the media scale of the modern urban metropolis.