| From Museum to Stage: The FATHOM Series: |
| Exhibitions Junko's Writings Publications Selected Works About Junko Reviews Contact Links Home | | In 2001 Junko Chodos created a series of three works entitled "Esoteric Buddhism: Sexual ecstacy, clean and pure, this too is the realm of the Boddhisatva."Esoteric Buddhism originates in Tantric traditions and teaches that the body is as important a vehicle towards enlightenment as the soul. It was brought to Japan in the 9th Century by a charismatic priest named Kuukai. The series was first exhibited at a one-person show of Junko's art at the Long Beach Museum of Art in 2001 and then it was shown in one-person shows at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (2002) and the Fresno Museum of Art (2005). This series was just the beginning of her exploration of Kuukai's ideas. Junko met Choreographer John Malashock in 2001. Kuukai's idea of the body as a vehicle and Buddha's idea of "The Body as Universe" -- ideas which John had kept in his mind for a long time -- created an instant bond between the two of them. The vision of a large-scale program featuring an encounter between Dance, Art and Music, focusing on the relationship between the body and the spirit and based on Kuukai's life, was thus born. This gave Junko the occasion to create a new series of works exploring Kuukai's ideas further - works which would be designed to hang as effectively on the stage as on a museum wall. And yet it took her four years of thinking and planning to begin this new series. She went on an intoxicating and even perilous journey into Kuukai's world: a world which is vibrantly sensual and at the same time offers a highly intellectual view of the cosmos - a world which is a blend of Buddhism and Japan's native Shinto, along with Western ideas which reached the East by the long silk road. Kuukai's religion is little known in the West and yet it remains the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan. It was in August of 2005 that Junko produced the first of the works for the first scene of the program: a 3-panel set called "The Sorcerer Entering His Forest". Just after it was finished, that work was exhibited in the Fresno Museum of Art as part of the one-person show given Junko as Woman Artist of the Year. After that came a flood of entirely new works: the FATHOM Series burst out and was completed between October 2005 and March of 2006. It consists of 40 mylar panels making up13 works. The panels are all 42 inches wide, and either 10 feet or 12 feet tall. Because the support is mylar, they take lighting well and each piece is adaptable to a range of moods. The series includes forest scenes and evocations of Kuukai's early youth as a sorcerer; an ocean voyage scene evoking his spiritual quest and journey to China; a view of ancient Chang'An, the cosmopolitan center at the eastern end of the Silk Road; a Tantric dance scene; and a series of mandalas. The collage technique is a development of other collage techniques Junko invented. These works are collages of computer print on matted paper, layered onto the mylar. Because the technique was brand new, much experimentation was required to produce the series. The prints themselves are in some cases photographs of found objects and in some cases photographs of Junko's own earlier works - but all of them are processed in the computer, enlarged, distorted, and then printed, cut, and collaged onto the mylar by hand. A reproduction of the original "Esoteric Buddhism" series can be found at pp. 84-85 of the catalog for the Long Beach exhibit, Metamorphoses: The Transformative Vision of Junko Chodos. The series is also featured in the stunning 22-minute DVD, Cry of Ecstasy, which features other works of Junko's as well. Both of these titles are available from GiottoMultimedia.com, and the DVD is also available on Amazon.com.Giotto Multimedia P.O. Box 995 Malibu, CA 90265 USA www.giottomultimedia.com |