Thomias Radin Body is Power-Knowledge, 2025

With his painting entitled Body is Power-Knowledge, Radin is celebrating the biological and spiritual ability of the human body through a mythical conversation between two giants of modern dance who never met in real life, Alvin Ailey and Germaine Acogny, and the vajra with its multiple spiritual associations.

The vajra (in Sanskrit), or dorje (in Tibetan), means diamond or lightning. It's a ritual object, shaped like a small scepter, used in Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, to which it gave its name: Vajrayana, the Diamond Vehicle. The vajra represents the energy of lightning, an energy that destroys obstacles on the Path; as a diamond, it is also the supreme weapon that cuts through the veil of illusions and defilements, leading to awakening; lastly, it can evoke the indestructible, unalterable nature of the spirit, or its purity.