Meet artist Metis Atash and her fabulous sparkly Punk Buddhas. The German artist’s buddha sculptures are outfitted with spikey mohawks and painstakingly clad with Swarovski crystals to emulate fashions inspired by the work of well-known artists and fashion designers.
Metis Atash Punk Buddhas
It takes thousands of genuine Swarovski crystals, each of them meticulously hand placed, to adorn her Buddhas. She makes them in various sizes, spanning from her 4″ tall Baby Buddhas to her large 18″ tall Buddhas.
Metis sculpts in fiberglass and uses acrylic paint and automotive lacquer prior to adding the crystals. All her creations are subject to a multi-step process of clay modeling, molding, sculpting, sanding and lacquering. The objects of her work are based on the spiritual being and her sculptures are inspired by the ancient teachings of the DAOISM.
The word DAO translates as “path” or “way” of life. DAOIST propriety and ethics focus on nature, the relationship between humanity and the cosmos, health and longevity as well as action through inaction, which is thought to produce harmony with the universe. Metis’ pieces are aimed to be perceived as the mirror of our eternal souls. They showcase the duality in life and the merging of our inner beings with our physical beings. (source)
Art enthusiasts will immediately recognize the Punk Buddhas clad in clothes inspired by the works of Andy Warhol, Piet Mondrian, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bansky, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst and Yayoi Kusama.
Less obvious, but equally as ornate and beautiful, are the Punk Buddha’s wearing fashions inspired by Chanel, Balmain, Versace, Dior and Dolce and Gabbana.
ARTIST STATEMENT (from her website)
“My collection embodies everything that I revere as a human being and an artist. The series of painted Buddha sculptures bathed in Swarovski Crystals, and every part of who I am is about love and happiness.
What holds my interest is the question of the inner being. What is our journey and how can we become the pure positive energy that we were, before we came onto Mother Earth to experience life as physical beings. How can we advance to a life of truth, goodness, and love. It has been my greatest gift to discover this quest through spiritual practice and through this, to understand that we live in “two” simultaneous worlds: the physical and the spiritual. We are so familiar with and focused on acting in the physical world that any other kind of action in the spiritual world is hard to fathom. Because of our preoccupation with physical activity in which we appear to cause effects in people and events around us, we overlook the vital necessity to comprehend how and why we must perform actions in the spiritual world. But in hundred years from now it will be vitally important not only what we accomplished in our earthly existence, but also what we did in the spiritual realm. My challenge has always been (and still is at times) how to marry these worlds without the feeling of guilt? But I have learned that as long as I allow myself to stay true to my inner being by feeling pure positive energy and finding happiness in all that is, these two worlds could never be a contradiction but a union. And so are my pieces. A fusion of worldly pleasures and spiritual insights.
I have embarked on this journey many years ago in Bali, a place where love is the only energy to be found. Bali is also the source of my pieces. People in Bali choose to walk through life with a wide-open and pure heart. And they just are. In smiles or tears, in movement or stillness, in happiness or sadness, but always content with what is, knowing that contrast is the only path to inner growth. They understand that it is during times of hardship where our desires and goals are set into motion. And they know that only the mind creates the world; that what you see arises with your thoughts and if you speak and act with a confused mind, trouble will follow you as certainly as a cart follows the ox that pulls it. But if you speak with a clear mind, happiness will follow you as certainly as your own shadow in sunlight.
To understand our own thinking is to understand all thinking. The mind falls in love with itself, and this amazing passionate love affair is the foundation of all. It creates out of a space that is so unlimited in its self-love that it doesn’t ever have to be told or proven or seen.
It is its own experience. And it’s happy—in that all.
With LOVE, Metis”
Metis Atash
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images and artist representation courtesy of the artist and the following galleries:
Bel-Air Fine Art Galerie in St. Tropez
Samuel Lynne Galleries
Sponder Gallery