Clear Light Koan

2008

170 x 96 cm diameter

Glass fibre, Polyester resin, 20mm thick Clear Perspex sections, motorised turntable

Koan is a Japanese word for a paradoxical riddle given to young Buddhist monks as aids for meditation. Koans are a continuous theme in Lijn’s work.

A typical Zen Koan would be What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping? Lijn used this as the title for a film she made in 1975 about the Koan series of her work. Koans are tools for meditation and are used to dissolve duality. Koans are about relating the parts to the whole.

Clear Light Koan combines Lijn’s interest in the relationship between the material and the immaterial and the paradoxical nature of reality. The apparently solid cone is layered with emptiness. What appear empty is, in fact, solid, whereas the apparently solid white cone is an empty shell.