Flaming Orbs (Tejas)
Sophie Saunders
Opening: October 14 5:30 pm
Viewing: October 13 until October 31
Actively stripping away the space between my inner impulse and the canvas, I treat the brushstroke not as a tool for description, but as a direct transmission of energy (Tejas)*.
After thirty years of making hard-edged abstract paintings, I’m surprised to find how much I enjoy the return to making gestural, painterly works. They recall my work from around 1990 which was very free, gutsy and textural.In my last show at Bowen Galleries in Wellington in 2024, I demonstrated how I had started to completely upset my own previous practice.
From 1990 onwards I had put myself under a sort of discipline where colour, light and shape were utilized in the service of my deep ongoing interest in conveying a sense of the spiritual; in fact, to attempt to make paintings that are contemplative objects.I’m now examining the possibility that being completely free and open (while risky) is even more authentic and actually considerably more difficult- than that previously more premeditated approach.
Circles and triangles have featured prominently in my work for the past twenty years or so. They relate to images that have appeared periodically during meditation, and I have long been interested in their place within twentieth-century abstraction as well as Hindu Vedantic philosophy. As the work has loosened up again lately, I’ve just been left with the circles. One day recently while I was painting, the words ‘flaming orbs’ appeared in my mind. On doing some research I discovered they are actually a thing in Vedantic philosophy, and there is a word for them- “Tejas.”
I would also like to acknowledge here my heartfelt and eternal gratitude to my wonderful painting tutor, Alberto Garcia-Alvarez 1928 – 2026, who always supported the approach of treating painting as a serious tool for self-enquiry.
-Sophie Saunders, October 2026.
* In Vedantic and yogic contexts, Tejas can refer to a subtle inner fire or radiant energy associated with consciousness, transformation and spiritual insight.
{ Gallery 1 }
Image: Tejas, oil on linen, 2026
