A conscious creation of balance and unity through the beauty of art for the awakening eye.
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Nitya combines semi-precious stones into an almond-shaped form, called “mandorla” in Italian.
The mandorla is an ancient, sacred form made of two overlapping circles symbolizing creation and union. It is represented in different cultures as the flower of life, the meeting of the physical and spiritual, and the universal womb. In her work it becomes a vessel for the creation of a higher consciousness.
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Begin exploring:
about
Nitya Sara is a contemporary mixed media artist, currently living and working in San Diego, CA.
She attended Otis College of Art and School of Visual Arts (B.F.A) in NYC. While working quietly and raising two sons, she explored issues of identity, fragmentation, and unity, utilizing various materials including bark, fiberglass, paint, resin, carbon fiber and more.
In 2012, she experienced a life-threatening diagnosis. The gift of the illness came as a wise teacher, guiding her inner work of re-membering the self.
In 2018, during integration work, she discovered the almond-shaped mandorla. While this form appeared early in her work, it presented a core moment of transformation, through a shift of perception. This initiated a move from the personal to the collective, from the story of suffering to the creation of an offering. She began to work with semi-precious stones for their contemplative and tactile qualities. Conscious creation emerged as the fruit from this shift.
“The mandorla represents the gift of oneness, my journey of healing into wholeness.” —Nitya Sara
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my process
My creative process emerged years ago during a walk on an island far away from home. I suddenly noticed large, dark-colored, tree pods with bold curves strewn about the ground. An awareness of my fragmented self suddenly arose, and instinctively I began to collect as many pods as I could carry with my hands. This awareness came with an intrinsic recognition of something outside of the body which needed to be collected and reunited. Later, in the studio, they were assembled into an almond-shaped form.
This was the beginning of an intuitive process which involves collecting various materials and assembling them into a whole. It was also the beginning of a long journey back home and became the seed of inspiration which led me to create the mandorla.
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