You enter her workshop, high up on a top floor on the outskirts of Paris, as if you were entering a celestial palace.
Such is this somehow out-of-the-world peaceful place where Marlis Ladurée creates her Mandalas.
In sanskrit, the sacred language of Indian Brahmins, Mandala means 'circle' and, more accurately, 'holy' or 'magical circle'.
Born in West Berlin, Marlis Ladurée arrived in France in 1978, where she was to become one of the first artists to paint contemporary Mandalas.
Of her first experience with the 'magical circle - the esoteric diagrammes', she says :
"25 years ago, although I had been a student in design and fashion illustrations, I was already keen on Asia. My soul probably comes from there..."
Inspiration struck in 1989, during a lecture she was attending as part of her course with Shri Mahesh French Federation of Hatha Yoga. Actually, this subject was to become the theme of her academic paper 'Mandalas and Yoga for Children'.
Hence also the title of her first creation, 'Mémoire'.
Looking back, we can see that her early works followed a logical sequence, still inspired by temples - temples dedicated to the body first, then those of Indian mythology and eventually cosmic temples.
For Marlis Ladurée, who identifies with the symbol of the rose (the Eastern equivalent of the lotus), 'Painting is an opportunity to free one's impressions, to receive and transmit messages as well as images from the subtle world.
Creation is ruled by a very specific ritual :
« I light candles, burn incense and put on some music (mostly mantras). I enter a meditative state and, facing the white canvas, with the palette in my hand, standing midway between the sky and the earth,
I let the divine forces guide me. »
« Somehow I kind of leave this world for another universe where I listen fully. I ask for grace so that the creative energy may use me as a pillar, as an instrument, so that I may receive what this energy wants me to turn into matter. I never know in advance how the canvas will evolve... when the technique gets intricate, I use yogic postures and breathing. »
It is more than just an art, it is a communion with the divine !
