One of the beautiful things about living in New York is the ever impressive trough of talented people residing in the city. During the Gemma Kahng after-party, Ana Lola Roman and I had the pleasure of meeting Emily Cheng, an accomplished painter.  

Looking through her paintings I recalled a passage in psychologist Carl Jung’s autobiography, Dreams, Memories, and Reflections where he explains his fascination with mandalas. He wrote “  I saw that everything, all paths I had been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point — namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the centre. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the centre, to individuation. 

… I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate.”

      Emily takes a similar approach to her work, utilizing a variety of symbols ranging from from 18th century floral designs to ancient Tibetan imagery to express various internal states. No matter what the disparate images are, the effect always manages to return the viewer to a meditative place, back into their center. 

For more of Emily Cheng’s work, check out her projects here.