TAASA Review Issues

Taking a cue from the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ major winter exhibition for 2026, Avatar: Forms of Vishnu (20 June-5 October), this TAASA Review issue presents articles addressing divinity and devotion in (primarily) South and Southeast Asian art. Approaching divinity as construction rather than self-evident truth, it explores the many ways in which the divine has been construed and understood, addressing diverse concepts from sacred landscapes to specific artistic manifestations. Equally, attention is paid to practices of devotion, underscoring the psychological aspects and social effects of these practices.

The two opening articles specifically relate to the Avatar exhibition, co-curated by Melanie Eastburn and Chaitanya Sambrani. Based on her enduring engagement with Cambodian art, Eastburn writes about Cambodian works featured in the exhibition. Ranging from a 6th century pre-Angkorian sculpture of Krishna holding up Mount Govardhana to 19th century paintings of the Reamker, these works demonstrate the role of material innovation in the imagination and interpretation of images of the divine across cultures. My article addresses importance of diversity and multiplicity in images of divinity as exemplified by the Avatar exhibition. I suggest that artistic innovations embrace dynamism and mobility, allowing for a polymorphous tradition shaping and reshaping the divine.

Maria Karageorge provides a detailed consideration of Touching the Divine: Love and Devotion in Asian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, an exhibition earlier this year which also dealt with art related to the divine. It featured works produced in response to Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic faiths on the Indian subcontinent which resonated across extensive geographies: Central Asia, China, Iran, Turkey and Europe. Karageorge underlines the centrality of inter-cultural circulation in the production and transformation of religious art across Asia.

Siobhan Campbell discusses an important Balinese illustrated manuscript of the Ramayana at the National Gallery of Australia. Campbell emphasises the sophistication of this 19th century manuscript that combines text and image revisiting key narrative episodes from the epic. Working in black Chinese ink on English-made paper, the artist of this manuscript from Kamasan was not simply rehearsing an inherited tradition., Rather, the artist seems to have been intent on delivering a sense of sentiment or mood at specific junctures. Campbell also draws out parallels between notions of kingship in the Ramayana with lineaments of royal authority more generally.

The issue includes three articles that concentrate on a single temple. Victoria Kung presents a personal overview of the Sakya Temple of Peace in suburban Canberra, arguing that such sites and the art they contain are not merely representations, but physical manifestations of the divine. Kung emphasises the unity between devotional practice and acts of service and art making among the sangha.

Based on his lecture in the TAASA Monday night lecture series on Arts and Architecture of Northern India, Richard Barz’ article discusses the Sun Temple at Konark. Offering a historical overview alongside a consideration of the architectural program at Konark, Barz emphasises the importance of temple structures in making available direct access to the divine, generating a sense of enduring sanctity even when active worship has ceased. My discussion of the Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam emphasises the relationship of architectural form to religious formation, suggesting that bodily experience of the sequence of architectural spaces is constitutive of encounters with the divine.

Marnie Feneley approaches constructions of sacredness in landscape through an analysis of the 9th century archaeological site of Mahendraparvata on the Phnom Kulen plateau in Cambodia. Feneley emphasises the inseparability of water, landscape and religious authority, demonstrating that iconic as well as aniconic elements across Vaishnava, Shaiva and Buddhist devotional traditions combine with terrain and hydrology in producing concepts of the sacred.

Phaptawan Suwannakudt reflects on her lifelong relationship with art and devotion along the waterways of the Chao Phraya in Thailand. Evoking her engagement with Thai Buddhist belief and practice and her role as a painter of temple murals in the tradition of her father Tan Kudt, Phaptawan demonstrates the role of migration and cross-cultural interactions along these waterways, producing engagements with the divine across animism, folk religion, Daoism and Buddhism.

Our traveller’s tale comes from Julia Gajewska-Pratt who recalls her visits to devotionally rich sites in the Bhopal and Vidisha districts of Madhya Pradesh, central India. Ranging from animist belief systems exemplified in the rock shelters of Bhimbetka through landmarks of classical art at Sanchi and Udaygiri, Gajewska-Pratt also addresses contemporary traditions of Adivasi art emphasising the enduring significance of devotion in the art and architecture of the region. Finally, a review of its 30th anniversary exhibition by curator Con Gerakaris acknowledges the important contribution of gallery 4A, Sydney in promoting Asian art.