Candida Valentino Mandala Designs

Candida Valentino is a creative artist who has been studying and engaging with many Asian and Central Asian cultures, through art and music. Her mandala paintings reflect her passion of colour, sacred geometry and come from a space of contemplation and meditation.

She originally trained as a costume and stage designer for theatre and dance and then went onto working in the picture framing industry designing decorative mounts for prints and original art work. She more recently went on to study at The Prince’s School of Traditonal Arts taking courses in Sacred Geometry, Phaubha painting, and Geometric paper folding.

Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning (Man) signpost or direction (Dala) meaning best part. The original purpose for creating a mandala or yantra was as a meditation tool to awaken to one’s true immortal Self by redirecting the outflowing creative energies of the spiritual seeker inward and upward through the spine toward the centre of the spiritual eye. This spiritual eye is located within the midsection of the brain in an area between the eyebrows and in yoga is known as the “third eye”. All sacred symbols are revealed from this place as the truth of one’s nature arises.

Mandalas have been used in many cultures as a way of focusing with intention to create and be at one with the divine. Just to gaze upon a Rose window in one of the great cathedrals fills our souls with love, joy and peace. So a mandala can be used purposefully or just for the pleasure of the design beyond the meaning.