Sue Lovell ~ has a BA Hons in Fine Art & a post graduate art teachers certificate and  has had many exhibitions of her work in the UK over the past 30 years.

She has been practising Iyengar yoga for 20 years and teaching for 12 years. Together with her partner, also an Iyengar yoga teacher, she runs Peak Iyengar Yoga Centre in Buxton in the Peak District.

After beginning a  study of  yoga philosophy - the parallels and profound  significance the practice of art and yoga have for each other dawned & the 2 practices have become entwined – and a source of nourishment for each other.

Art as Meditation …….inner and outer landscapes

The works are inspired by yoga practice  and represent the beginnings of my study of aspects of  yoga philosophy. I am  starting with the image of the divine form of Patanjali – who offered us the yoga sutras more than 2000 years ago – (the earliest and still the most profound and enlightening study of the human psyche).  The Patanjali shrines are for the auspicious practice of asana, pranayama and study – we light a candle before him to signify the spiritual and agarbatti to represent the burning zeal of our practice. The deities which we see on every corner in India have profound significance in  yoga  – Ganesha removes the obstacles to our yoga practice, Bramha is the creator, Vishnu is the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer – this trinity  represents the 3 phases of asana – entering or creating, holding with devotion, and dissolving into silence.

Making art and practicing yoga gives one the opportunity to experience a spiritual relationship with our landscapes  – both inner and outer – microcosm and macrocosm.  Both have the purpose of addressing our deep seated desire to find out the  meaning of our existence.  Each discipline provides a long  path of processes and tasks – these need to be performed with discrimination & repeated adding refinements. Each demands a  practice or sadhana ~  yoga, the practice of asana and adherence to 8 limbs of yoga ~ art, the physical act of making, with discriminative adjustments and contemplation.  Single minded application to this practice becomes  a devotion, ‘asana is holding a particular posture with bhavana or the thought of god is within’, this  ‘posture has to be held firm so as not to shake that Divinity’. 

Devotion brings the consciousness firmly into the present moment so asana is ‘no longer performed by the physical or physiological  body but by the inner self’. Painting focuses the mind in a similar manner, this absorption brings the mind to a meditative state.

I hope that the works may  provoke a look at the yogic texts – open the yoga sutras at random pages until something lights a spark!  Also, they are intended for contemplation - the need to make  art is an attempt to offer something that is for and made by visual meditation.

‘Join the hands, cupped in devotion, embrace the falling leaves of the yoga sutras, received from the teacher most ancient and offer to the heart’

Sue Lovell