Diamond Flowers – Talisman Jams, brings together Mark Misic instinctive approach to gesture, texture, and colour in a striking new series of diamond - shaped paintings. In these works Misic continues to jam in the intersection of science and myth, reflecting his interest in mysticism, magic and personal encounters with nature and the universal phenomena.
Fascinated by how flowers are used in temple rituals, Misic invokes these flower paintings as metaphysical talismans, painterly portals that charge the space between the seen and the unseen, creating subtle and direct connections between the viewer and the larger universal field, where looking flows both ways. Each diamond mandala is named after a plant associated with both magical lore and natural healing. While Western mythology links these plants to elemental spirits like fairies, modern science reveals that the compounds within these flowers form the basis of many contemporary pharmacological treatments.
Misic sees paint as a medium embedded with a light medicine that conjures and connects to the magic of nature and to source. The rotated square format allows each painting to function as a mandala. Composed of two intersecting triangles, the upward-pointing triangle represents the celestial realms, while the downward-pointing triangle signifies the underworld.
Silver is layered throughout the works as a transcendental motif. Reflective and immersive, it mirrors the world, referencing the gilded surfaces of mystical artworks across both Eastern and Western traditions. An important reference is Edvard Munch’s ocular sketches, where he rendered the visions through his damaged right eye.