{"id":28327,"date":"2015-03-15T01:54:30","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T07:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=28327"},"modified":"2025-10-23T19:30:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T02:30:05","slug":"curtis-olsons-mandalas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/curtis-olsons-mandalas\/","title":{"rendered":"Curtis Olson’s Mandalas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blogolson\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When you view Curtis Olson\u2019s newest work, up this month at Park City\u2019s JGO Gallery, you\u2019re likely to sense something familiar: some of the pieces may remind you of the spirograph kits and t-shirt designs of your youth (if you are of a certain age), while in others you may recognize references to “sacred geometry” and to the medicine wheels and dance shields from Native American cultures.<\/p>\n

These \u201cmandalas,\u201d as Olson calls them, are made of thick layers of brightly-colored plaster with hand-etched geometrical patterns contained in that perennial search for perfection, the circle. They are a continuation, both formally and thematically, of what the artist has been doing for the past decade. First, there were the\u00a0Landscape Memories<\/em>, where his colorful plaster impasto framed photographs of old buildings and pieces of rusted metal from the Rocky Mountain west he calls home. Then there were his\u00a0Knowledge Objects<\/em>, enigmatic sculptural pieces in a greatly-reduced palette that called to mind ancient (or even alien) civilizations, and suggested lost knowledge and technologies.<\/p>\n

These new pieces evoke a related search for knowledge, if a more spiritual one. Sacred geometry \u2014 those designs and patterns based on the belief in a geometric underpinning for the universe\u2014plays an important role here. The evenly spaced, overlapping circles that form a floral motif in the design known as \u201cThe Flower of Life\u201d (which is found in various sites of the ancient world and is used in a number of occult traditions) appears in multiple works. It may be a limited number of circles that intersect to form a single, central form, as in “Flower Seed,” or it may be a full-fledged flower, in which the pattern repeats multiple times, forming six-petaled structures that receed or advance depending on ones point of focus. In others works, like \u201cDirection 2\u201d and \u201cCompass,\u201d sacred geometry takes the form of straight lines pointing to the cardinal and intercardinal directions and intersecting to form various star patterns. All these designs are inscribed within a thick circle (\u201cmandala\u201d in Sanskrit), which sits at the center of a rectangle whose dimensions are based on sacred proportions (1:1:, 2:3, 3:5). All call to mind mankind\u2019s ancient search for structure, sacredness and a place in the universe.<\/p>\n

Olson\u2019s references can be as modern and mundane as they are ancient and sublime. The stripes of color that vertically divide his canvases bring to mind color field painting of the sixties\u2014which was based in its own sense of mysticism and spirituality. But for these works Curtis also cites the influence of 1980s t-shirts designs\u2014 those ocean and sunset scenes of bands of color contained within a circular print. This may be a symptom of our time: in the Internet age, when all knowledge is circumscribed by a Google search, going from sacred geometry to outdated t-shirt designs is a matter of a few clicks.<\/p>\n