1999 · 70 × 70 cm (approx. 28 × 28 in) · Genesis Mandalas · by Stephen Meakin
The septagon cannot be drawn perfectly. Unlike every other regular polygon, it cannot be constructed with a compass and straightedge alone. It can only be estimated. Stephen chose it as the foundation of this work.
Seven is the only number between one and ten that neither divides nor multiplies into any other. Every tradition assigned it to the sacred: seven chakras, seven heavens, seven planets. Pythagoras called it three plus four, triangle plus square, heaven plus earth. The number that belongs to neither and therefore stands alone.
The flower Stephen placed within this geometry is the Lady's Slipper Orchid. It is Britain's rarest native wildflower. There is one wild plant left in England. Its location is secret, guarded by Natural England. Darwin studied the pollination mechanism: the flower's pouch traps an insect, coats it in pollen, and then releases it. Stephen painted thirty of them.
He gave the rarest flower in England to the polygon that cannot be perfectly drawn. Two things that can only be approximated, held together in gold leaf.
Jung documented the mandala emerging spontaneously during individuation, the psyche's own attempt to picture its wholeness. Stephen spent hundreds of hours constructing what the psyche reaches for on its own.
If you see beauty in these paintings, that is because you can see part of yourself, like in a mirror, you see something you know. Something totally cosmic is reflected in you. — Stephen Meakin