Also on View > Lewis deSoto

Interested in exploring the themes of physical change and the passage of time, Lewis deSoto portrays himself as Buddha at the moment of death and supreme consciousness. Inspired by the colossal rock carving of the 12th-century Gal Vihara Buddha in Sri Lanka, Paranirvana refers to a condition of transcendence beyond physical needs and desires. 

 

Inflated by a simple fan mechanism, the work's fragile materiality and empty interior underscore a sense of insubstantiality and impermanence. deSoto's substitution of his own face for the Buddha's plays the specificity of self-portraiture in Western culture against the Buddhist teaching that there is no distinct "self," that individuals are merely a combination of ever-changing physical and mental energies.