Chitra Ganesh

Rainbow Body

The title of Rainbow Body by Chitra Ganesh refers to an elevated state of, or metaphor for, the consciousness transformation known as a rainbow body. The Buddhist master Padmasambhava achieved this state from his union with Mandarava, a female spirit (dakini) and princess in Tantric Buddhism. Through study and physical connection, each played a key role in the other’s enlightenment. Ganesh’s work takes inspiration from the cave on the right in the painting of the bodhisattva Maitreya, located adjacent to the animation. The cave structure is elaborated upon the extensively built out, introducing an interior depth where the ultimate transformation happens. I wanted to work with a narrative structure of dreamlike density, moving the viewer through a succession of physical and psychic spaces. The animation opens with Mandarava waking up to a dream in her bedroom and follows her journey through the Bardo, the sometimes terrifying passageway between death and rebirth. The aerial and gliding camera movements reconfigure imagery of the Bardo from paintings with a greater sense of space and depth. The work also combines the artist’s line drawings, watercolors, and paintings with pictorial elements from a variety of original sources.