Portfolio: Charlotte Herzig

This is a photograph that I took in Phoenix, Arizona, on the way to a yoga retreat in New Mexico. It’s the encounter of a horde of 13 garden Madonnas (you can see them just over the white picket fence) and a Caterpillar bulldozer.

Painting is healing; no one seems to be winning. Can spirituality heal?

Regardless, at the end of the day, Madonnas are cool cats.

This anonymous painting from Rajasthan, India, is the progeny of hand-written, illustrated religious treatises dating from the 17th century that have been copied over generations by adepts An anonymous painting from Rajasthan, India. Like musicians playing ragas, adepts paint in a concentrated state of mental rapture, repeating and subtly reinterpreting melodic structures of line and colour. When finished, the paintings – made with tempera, gouache and watercolour on paper – are pinned to the wall to use in private meditation.

A rudra vina is a classical Indian string instrument consisting of four plucked strings along a tubular body, three chikari strings and two hollowed gourds at either end. Designed for a younger generation of rudra lovers, you can buy this 3D model from the site 3drivers.com.

3drivers.com assures you that with this 3D scan you can enjoy the sounds of a rudra vina. Whether that’s true or not, you should try listening to this from rudra master Ustad Asad Ali Khan in the morning: he will guide you through the day.

This is a film still from Allures, a short experimental film made by the San Francisco-based artist and filmmaker Jordan Belson in 1961. Watching Belson’s films is a wholly cosmic experience. It clears and uplifts my mind. 

Last year I went on a horseback riding trip through the mountains of beautiful Kyrgyzstan with my artist friend Claudia Comte. Near our camping spot we encountered 14 wild horses. Each of them was staring at us, the tourists riding domesticated horses.