Back to the Source

This is a Diptych. Tim Ratliff asks a Buddhist monk what happens when we die. The monk responds, “You return to the ocean. A happy return, like coming home.” The line draws from a long-standing metaphor in Buddhist and Eastern philosophy, where individual life is likened to a drop of water, and death to its return to the sea. It reflects the idea that the self is never truly separate—only temporarily distinct—and that death is not an end but a return to a larger, continuous whole. Rather than offering doctrine, the monk speaks in image and symbol. His words align with traditions that view consciousness or being as part of an unbroken cycle, where dissolution is not loss but reintegration. This perspective doesn’t center on punishment, reward, or judgment—it emphasizes release, continuity, and unity. The scene uses this framework not to preach, but to portray how some cultures and philosophies approach mortality: with calm, with familiarity, and with the belief that to die is not to vanish but to return to where we came from. The phrase “a happy return” encapsulates that worldview without needing to explain it

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ARTIST STATEMENT
I am Astrid Dahl, an Australian artist. My art study began in RMIT Australia when I was 16, and ended with a masters of art. I constantly experiment and with 60 years of painting and teaching art I feel that I am still evolving, still learning and still in wonderment with Nature's ‘Treasures’.
It is in the act of creating itself which is the most exciting to me.
My main focus is the landscape – not in the literal or photographic sense but its poetry, its spirituality, its philosophy and its distilled abstractedness'. I process, discover and redefine my life through interpretations of the land – the Mother – my beginning and my ultimate end.
Travelling through Tibet, the Thar Desert India, The Great Sandy Desert and the Gibson Desert in Western Australia and the Black Rock desert in Nevada, USA, gives me the inspiration for my work. I collect fragments, such as stones rocks, and bottling different coloured sands, sketching and use my own photography to further enrich my paintings..
In the 80s when I saw for the first time, the brick red earth, the clear azure blue sky and the sparse desert growth struggling to survive. I fell in love with the remote rawness and saw an analogy to my own life at the time. I have kept my connections with the desert country always gathering inspiration for more works.
I think we all live in a desert and we try to populate it with our hopes and dreams, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. Everyone’s desert is different, sometime not of our own choosing.
Lately I have been wandering down the road of painting Still-life and Flowers. I have a strange calm when I paint flora and enjoy it immensely. As Buddha once said, “you can see the world in a single Flower”.
The materials I use, varies with each painting and I see-saw between semi abstractness and some semblance of recognition. I enjoy making each piece unique in its concept and approach. I use acrylics and combine it with oils and a variety of textures and mediums. I sometimes add gold or silver leaf, which is like painting with light. Each painting is on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame and varnished with an artist quality satin finish. All materials I use are of Artist quality.