Penny Slinger

That is a big question and honestly at this point in my life I do not perceive any distinctions between spiritual and non spiritual. It is all spiritual to me, this material plane is just a veil over the inner eternal spirit.

I see the role of spiritual awareness as being central in my life and my art. Again, I do not draw hard lines between my life and art, they are one intricate weave.

I suppose the idea of weaving together the spiritual and the material, the sacred and profane is core to my practice. I am a practicing Tantrika and Tantra means to weave and to expand. The expansion comes with lifting the limits on the individual self and expanding into the multidimensional selves that we really are. The removing of limitations is at the heart of my endeavours. Removing the boxes society puts us in and reaching further into the realm of infinite potential. That is my kind of spiritual practice.

When living in the Caribbean for 15 years, the spirit of the Arawak peoples, the Indigenous first inhabitants of the islands, came through to me loud and clear and I dedicated myself to embodying them through my art during my sojourn there. I firmly believe that the indigenous model of honoring the spirit in all things is one we urgently need to embrace if we want a future on and for this planet.

Finally, although all my art has spirit at its root, the 64 Dakini Oracle is probably my most ambitious spiritual art undertaking. The Oracle includes 64 forms of the Divine Feminine. Modelled on the 64 Yogini Temples of Tantric India and with affinity to the I Ching, it is a Goddess Temple for our times, accessed through the process of divination (a way to get direct connection).

As the alchemists of old realised that making gold was not just a material pursuit but a spiritual quest, so I would describe myself as an artist/alchemist, where my raw materials are always refined by the power of spirit in the process.

A partner of mine, the late Nik Douglas, once said, ‘You can’t be an artist and a mystic, you have to choose.’ But I cannot choose, I am both.