Samasta, 2025
Artist: True Whiting
About the Artwork: Samasta is a word in Sanskrit meaning "all" or "complete." It carries within it a sense of totality — not just wholeness as an abstract idea, but wholeness as something lived, something that includes every being without exception. This painting was originally the second in a four-part series inspired by the mantra loka samastha sukhino bhavanthu, which translates from Sanskrit as "May all beings everywhere be happy and free." Each of the four paintings gave visual form to a single word of the mantra, together forming a kind of prayer in paint — an offering toward global peace and the easing of suffering for all living things. Though this piece has since become a stand-alone work due to the sale of, its original companions, even alone, it speaks to completeness — a reminder that wholeness is not diminished by separation, but is instead something each part already contains within itself. The painting takes the form of a mandala, a structure with deep roots across spiritual and artistic traditions, from Buddhist and Hindu sacred art to Jungian psychology, where the mandala is understood as a symbol of the unified self. The mandala has long been associated with the divine feminine. Its circular geometry echoes the shape of seeds, eggs, and cells: the fundamental architecture of life's beginnings. In many traditions, the center of the mandala is understood as a sacred point of origin, a still place from which all else radiates — much as the feminine principle is often understood as the source from which creation itself springs forth.
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 24” wide by 30” tall (regular depth canvas)
Framed: No
