Shrine (2005)
Gold-painted stencil on garage door
In Hinduism, Ganesh is the God of beginnings. He has the power to remove unnecessary obstacles along the journey. Before beginning any significant endeavour, Hindus thus pray to Ganesh for safe passage, guidance and good fortune.
Ganesh is a bridge between the old and new, past and present, ignorance and understanding, the mundane and the profound. But far from solemn, he is playful, jolly and loves eating sweets.
“Stationed at the threshold of sacredness and awareness, mediating between the possibility of the profound and our often habitual, mundane perception of the world.”
What I only understood later, was that Ganesh does not completely smooth the path ahead, but leaves those challenges that will make us strong, help us grow and develop our wisdom.
Years ago, I went through a phase of stencilling graffiti, inspired by the images painted onto East London walls and the Situationist ideals that celebrated the everyday and ephemeral in art. The idea that art could be a novel and shared experience, accessible to all, and not just a commodity. A transcendence of materialism and also an awakening of the senses to the wonder possible in daily life.
Around this time, the day before mother’s day I secretly spray-painted this golden Ganesh image onto a garage door located in an alleyway my Mum would walk through on her journey to work. Like in Eastern cultures, which bring the sacred into the commonplace, this golden painted shrine was supposed to be a beacon amongst the drudge of the familiar. The idea was that one day it would catch her eye and make her happy.
She never noticed it.