JAMES STANFORD : MODERN MANDALAS

A new Film by Eric Minh Swenson American artist James Stanford’s diverse practice includes photography, digital illustration, painting, and drawing. Stanford studied painting at the University of Washington (UW) (MFA) and the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) (BFA). Dedicated to creativity and the fine arts, he has taught at UNLV and UW, established the Smallworks Gallery, and curated exhibitions at various venues, including the Las Vegas Contemporary Arts Center. Today, Stanford is well known for his edition series Indra’s Jewels, a group of digitally reinvented mosaics of patterns that are at once decorative and contemplative. The vibrant images are reminiscent of physics-like models of space, but also have an immaterial, spiritual quality, evoking the artist’s strong connection to Zen Buddhism. Stanford credits his experimental approach to a transformative experience that occurred during his first visit to Europe in 1968, at the age of 20. At the Prado Museum in Madrid, Stanford saw Rogier van der Weyden’s deeply religious painting Deposition (1435) and was changed forever. The encounter provoked in Stanford an episode of shock, even ecstasy, of the kind known as Stendhal Syndrome – when exposure to a particular artwork of great personal significance produces an intense psychosomatic reaction. ‘I fainted in front of this painting. I was unconscious for 15 minutes. I woke up with a flash grasp of many of the painting techniques that he used. This started my...