Meditation Room Art: The Beginning of Being

Artist Lita Albuquerque, an internationally renowned installation and environmental artist, painter and sculptor, was commissioned to create an artwork for the Meditation Room in Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center (RRUCLA). She is a well-known California artist whose work includes "Golden State," the largest public art commission in California state government history, a plaza design spanning two city blocks at the center of the Capitol Area East End Complex in Sacramento. She also completed "Celestial Disk," a star map, sculpture and waterfall, in collaboration with architect Robert Kramer, which provides the main entrance to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles.

"The Beginning of Being" is a meditative work intended to stir philosophical questions in the viewer. There is an entry screen sandblasted with a quote from the Russian Constructivist painter Kasemir Malevich, which describes the feelings and concepts the artist hoped to relay. The screen also contains gold particles encased in a glass circle that symbolizes the spiritual aspect of universal being. It sits within a graphic star map, that the artist intended to "connect our being to the cosmos." The gold circle is repeated by a blue concave disk centered on the north wood wall at the opposite end of the room. This symbolizes the polarity between our earthly and spiritual being. The circular blue disk also symbolizes the number zero, which relates to the Malevich quote.