This and That and Everything
I’ve started two new series, one spilling over into the other.
They have a lot to do with abstract calligraphy and my explorations of Daoism and Zen. This is the fifth painting in the new series, and my favourite so far. I’d like to show it on its own, with just a few words about how I see it.
The forms in the painting, if we want to see them as objects at all, resemble characters in Chinese calligraphy. Their arrangement follows a similar rhythm. In traditional vertical Chinese writing, each column is read from top to bottom, and the columns proceed from right to left.
Where do Dao and Zen enter this for me? At the centre, I see a landscape with hints of things close by and far away. Yet it sits within a larger structure that suggests something beyond that landscape. The forms at the upper and lower right seem to point into that distance.
These two movements lead the eye towards the vertical pink line, which gives the painting much of its force.
What matters to me is bringing opposing qualities into harmony: coarse and fine, movement and calm, abstract and concrete, height and depth, solid and ethereal. I want them to remain distinct while belonging to the same painting.
Related articles: Three New Works · Chinese Characters · New Works for Old Series
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