PURA TIRTA EMPUL is the name of a temple in Bali. In balinese this means the temple of the holy spring. It is a popular water temple famous for its holy waters where people come for a ritual purification.
This painting isn’t inspired by the esthetics or the story of the temple but by the personal experience of the artist while she was visiting Tirta Empul. While doing the ritual of purification, the artist entered a kind of transe. She experienced herself as a golden light surrounded by a bright light which she was a part of and that was a part of her. It was a meditation she entered by accident and became one of the most intense meditative experiences she ever had.
This painting is that moment, the flow, the calm, the presence, and the artist discovering herself as a golden light. After this experience she saw her own energy as golden. It was like a hand of gold light or a seed, and so in her painting she uses gold to represent this all conscious part of the self.
