In memoriam · 2 March 1966 – 12 December 2021
“So here we are on Earth — orbiting a Sun Star at about 67,062 miles an hour.”
He said this not to disorientate or confuse us. But it’s here as a reminder of the gift in free will — and how temporary every consequence truly is. Whatever suffering occurs in the mind, however heavy it feels, humans overcomplicate what life, in its simplicity, is actually asking of them.
In the full timeline of the universe our lifespans are minuscule. But that is not the tragedy — that is the gift. Our mortality gives us the freedom to choose a life. To live it in any way we want. To stop thinking and start creating.
Consider the sheer improbability of being here at all. The chances of the specific sperm cell that became you reaching the egg. Then go further back — two nanoparticles, a proton and a neutron, colliding to ignite the big bang itself. The entire universe beginning in a moment no larger than a thought — let there be light! And here we are now, on Earth, orbiting a sun star at 67,062 miles an hour — moving at extraordinary speed through space while we worry about ordinary things.
There is a star inside each one of us. Quite literally. The iron in your blood, the calcium in your bones — forged in dying stars billions of years before you existed. But a star must burn for it to be born. The pressure, the heat, the collapse — that is not destruction. That is the process.
Everything you think is ordinary is extraordinary. That was the premise of Stephen Meakin’s entire life’s work.
Stephen Meakin knew things that were difficult to carry. He saw connections between things — between a flower and a planet, between a constellation and a breath, between the oldest geometric symbols on earth and the patterns growing in the fields outside his door — that most people around him couldn’t see or didn’t want to. That kind of knowledge is a gift. It is also a weight.
Stephen Meakin is best known for his large, vibrant, often circular paintings that are underpinned by the meticulous draughtsmanship of geometries. With a controlled but no less expressive artistic style, each canvas is painstakingly painted over hundreds of hours, eventually revealing beautiful mandala-esque patterns that are simultaneously inspirational, yet contemplatively intriguing. On closer inspection, these paintings are much more content-rich than the mere surface ornament. Intricate geometries are woven together with botanical form, butterflies, bees, birds and mystical beasts flowing from his imagination. Each composition has its own numerical narrative embedded within its fine detail.
He was born in Staffordshire in 1966 and spent his formative years growing up in the beautiful Georgian cities of Bath and Brighton. In 1986, he was offered a place on the Art Foundation at Brighton Polytechnic, where he was encouraged to explore different forms of expression in painting, textiles, sculpture and video. At that time the British Art movement was flowering in London, but he was looking for a different kind of aesthetic that seemed unrepresented in the galleries. Eventually, it was an exhibition of Aboriginal art that inspired him most.
Being unsure of his creative direction in 1990, he found a place to study for a degree in 3D design at Bournemouth. It was here, whilst researching ideas for a project, that he discovered a dusty old hardback full of ancient illuminated manuscripts from all over the world. The book contained loose-leaf illustrations of geometric pattern construction methods for both Arabic and Celtic patterns. On finding something “true” in those patterns, he began to imagine an abstract language that could be found in all cultures, and his passion for geometry was born.
Once graduated, he worked for Swatch briefly and then for an upmarket kitchen design company in Tunbridge Wells, before relocating abroad, where he helped to paint theatre backdrops in France, Ibiza and then Mexico, before eventually returning to the UK via a four-year stay in the Virgin Islands, where he worked as a mural painter, graphic artist and windsurf instructor. In his private sketchbooks throughout, he had started to explore geometry as a universal language, learning the techniques of Celtic and Persian pattern making and embracing the decorative arts from Gothic Europe and Tibet.
In 1996 he was offered a place to study Architecture and Interior Design at the University of Brighton. He gave himself time to continue research into cosmology, ancient temple buildings and the abstract ornament of antiquity. Following some years working in commercial architecture designing out-of-town shopping centres and then cruise ship interiors, he decided to move back to Brighton in 2002 to study for an MA in Fine Art. This allowed him time for a more in-depth compositional analysis of inspired works by his favourite artists Kandinsky, Klee and Miró, and this initiated further conceptual alignments in the process of making art developed by Brice Marden, Hanne Darboven and Josef Albers.
In 1999, while still an architecture student, he had made his first major mandala. He never stopped.
In the spring of 1995, I found myself on a little-known Island called Anegada in the Caribbean Sea. To all extents, this would be an island paradise surrounded by a coral reef with crystal clear waters of turquoise blue, teeming with tropical fish. I was walking alone along the eastern shoreline when I looked ahead, and I could see hundreds of old plastic bottles and trashed fishing nets. It was a plastic wasteland. To say I was devastated is an understatement, but at that moment of heartbreak and acute sensitivity, I realised that ‘everything is connected’. I returned to England as an Artist with a mission and decided to commit to finding a way to express and illuminate this interconnectedness — not in some abstract way, but in a concrete way that everybody could understand. Before I left the paradise beach, I drew my first-ever circle in the sand. At the exact moment I completed the circle, I felt something touch me that was inexplicable, totally beyond anything I had experienced before. Really, it was like I had a new sense of purpose of service, together with a deep compassion for the Earth and everything that lives on it. Although I had no idea how to express this feeling, it had something to do with the circle.
I treat the making of ‘Art as Ritual’. This really fascinates me, and as I prime and prepare my canvas, I am already in a state of reverence and openness for whatever may unfold. The mystery of working with numbers and patterns is that the language of geometry is somehow both deeply personal and impersonal at the same time. When I combine the engineering and drawing tools that I have at my disposal, with the colours from my paint-box, I have in front of me the very palette of my being. This ever-expanding palette is the sum of everything I have learned up until the moment of creation. As I observe nature, I’m always amazed by the roundness of things like the time, the sun, the moon and my mother’s eyes. There is something utterly beautiful that we meet when we are very young; to me, this is excelsis. In the apparent chaos of nature, there appears to be some deep order, as if there is a hidden substructure that holds everything together. It is this idea of an underlying structural pattern in nature that I investigate in my paintings, and this is how I explore and express the idea that everything is interconnected.
Maybe the reason why older spiritual traditions have this concept of interconnectedness embedded within them is that the societies that adopt this idea are the ones that, over time, deepen their level of consideration and understanding for each other and for the life on the planet. This is the reason that the idea of interconnectedness seems to be at the core of spiritual tradition, and this concept appears to be at the core of today’s science as matter, energy and life itself. I cannot help but be somewhat antagonistic towards the modern world, believing that it is travelling in the wrong direction, but instead of projecting this antagonism outwards, I choose to internalise the essence of this discord, and the result is a kind of Floral Display from the very heart of my being. In the last 20 years of practising this kind of artistic expression, I have become very effective in transmitting my ideas onto the canvas, and I am skilled in creating the forms that now clothe my message. The resultant art is dramatic and explosive, and it is this that catches the eye of my patrons, yet always within the work lies a deeper, peaceful place. I believe we can transform the ecology of our planet, and I can gently educate people’s minds by the subtle use of harmonic frequency expressed through geometry as hidden messages within the picture composition.
SEM moved to Lewes, Sussex, establishing his studio at Phoenix Place in the heart of the town. His mission was to transcend cultural boundaries and weave together four key components: the spirit of ancient Insular Island Arts, the great Rose Windows of Medieval Europe, the Art of Persian Geometry and the Sacred Mandala of Tibet.
He exhibited at the Majlis Gallery in Dubai’s historic Bastakiya quarter, at Trinity Art Gallery in London and at Unique Arts Gallery in Brighton. In 2016, his 3.6-metre Arista SunStar was commissioned by Camilla Fayed for the Farmacy restaurant in Notting Hill, London. He designed the sacred geometry for the Sahara Force India Formula 1 car. He created the Tree of Wellbeing mandala — a fusion of a traditional Medicine Wheel design with a Celtic Tree of Life — distributed to children in 1,200 hospices and hospitals throughout the UK.
Just as a pentagon (forget-me-not has 5 petals) is different from a hexagon (honeycomb has 6 sides), each painting has its own structural laws and its own number, rhythm, cadence and tone. The essence of his work is to encourage a higher level of relating to the natural and physical world that surrounds us.
The Dubai interview, 2011
January 2011. ‘The Mystic Rose’ was hanging at the Majlis Gallery, a courtyard house among the wind-towers of Bastakiya — the oldest quarter of Dubai, built by Persian merchants a century before. Stephen was 44, and the city’s press introduced him to its readers as “a master sacred geometer”.
Time Out Dubai sent the writer Nyree Barrett to ask him where the patterns came from. Her questions follow, lightly trimmed. Stephen’s answers are word for word as he gave them.
I am first an artist, but one who consciously works with geometry as part of my practice. I’m guided by the traditional idea of the Seven Liberal Arts, a philosophy of understanding originally formulated by Pythagoras in around 500BC; the seven arts include arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. All of these may be considered as the study of the number and its relationship to physical space or time: arithmetic is pure number, geometry is the number in space, music is the number in time and astronomy is the number in space and time. Traditionally, a geometer is an architect of sacred spaces, such as temples and churches. The ‘sacredness’ of geometry is symbolic in that various meanings can be ascribed to certain shapes, and certain shapes can evoke certain feelings and emotions. Many forms in nature can be related to geometry: the word geometry means ‘earth measure’, or an observed mathematical order in nature.
The division of ‘knowledge’ into categories is a purely modern phenomenon. As such, my work is both art and science, and much more besides.
Islamic art focuses on the depictions of pattern and calligraphy. The original Arabesque style was born from the arts of the nomadic tribes of pre-Islamic Persia. The uniqueness of this style comes from repeating elements such as geometrical floral or vegetal designs. The Arabesque in Islamic art is often used to symbolise the transcendent, indivisible and infinite. Geometrical pattern design in the Islamic world definitely has a distinct style, but it is by no mean exclusive. You can see similar geometrical patterns all over the world, from the Pyramids in Mexico and Egypt to ancient temples such as Stonehenge in England, and native American medicine wheels.
This varies greatly from a few days to more than a year… each work has a life of its own. Sometimes a painting gets in a mood with me and won’t let me work on it for weeks on end, then suddenly I am allowed back in.
To inspire wonderment.
Shall we sit down and have some tea?
Yes, you can make beautiful works of art, and I hope that you make art forever. So you have time! Relax because the real work you will need to do will be the work you do on ‘yourself’, but it’s great to have an art practice to keep us occupied on our magnificent journey through space-time. You will make many circles, so treat yourself to a good quality compass. The life-force within you knows everything you want to know and need to know. You can access your ‘cleverness’ by being full of ‘wonderment’ — yes, look at the flowers and be amazed! Do not worry about what others think, for they are responsible for their own reality. Sometimes we all ‘miss the point’ — just as in life, with geometry it is no different — sometimes we make a big mess, so practice and practice, eventually make perfect. Words have power, magic and meaning, so make use of your etymology dictionary. Geometry will ‘unfold’ in space before your eyes, so try to keep an eye on your Centre Point! Experience your geometry as if it were a rose growing in quick time right in front of you. Study the Temples of your ancestors as if they were the maps to hidden treasure. Try to see the book of nature — that’s all the stuff both inside and outside of all of us — as interconnected and interdependent. Please don’t use your pencil eraser like a crazy person, better just to start again on a new page, but remember that one pencil has 10 shades of grey, so be soft and gentle until you are sure what you are doing. The Flower of Life is easy to draw, but study this little book, for it will lead you home from the beginning. May you have a wonderful journey.
Like no other, Steve was all or nothing. He was immensely proud of his family, and couldn’t understand why we were happy with normal lives when you could have a life of drama, passion, and out of the ordinary. He was fiercely loyal and would fight your corner regardless of the trouble he might get into. He was a true rock star, always planning the next unforgettable party. He was impulsive, thinking nothing of getting you up in the middle of the night to watch the stars and the moon. Even when you were cross with him, he would charm you into loving him again. He would always leave little messages of love everywhere.
He was almost arrogantly confident, but at the same time would ask for your opinion — self-doubt and confidence intersecting. He loved Mike like a brother, who must have helped him more than a dozen times. Steve was always optimistic and infectious. Steve dominated our thoughts. We worried for him, wondered how he was doing, and wished with all our hearts that his dreams would come true.
There was no one like Steve. He loved people but chose solitude. He felt absent in recent years, but at the same time present and engaging. He tried everything known. He tried every known religion to help fill the voids and discontentment and to expand his knowledge of the universe. He was so fascinated with the world around him. He lived by his heart, quite literally, and certainly gave it a run for its money.
His moods, his passion, were intense; but when we think of Steve, we smile, we cry, we laugh, we get cross that we can’t have him just a little longer — as the happy, contented person we knew he so deeply wanted to be. The caged bird sings, but the world longs to fly. Steve, we will love you forever.
The Academy was founded by Stephen Meakin in 2010. Between 2010 and 2019, over 250 students attended classes from all over Europe to study on short courses in Sacred Geometry and Mandala Arts at TAGA. The Academy was one of the only schools in Europe where the ancient canons of the Geometer’s Craft were shared openly to initiate students in the use of geometry as a symbolic language and as a contemplative art-form in the spiritual imagination.
Steve also spent three months teaching Sacred Geometry at the Az-Zarqa School for Palestinian Orphans and Refugees in Jordan, where he visited Petra and traded beads with Bedouin children, carrying the same geometric language he taught in Lewes to children who had lost everything.