Tag: Chinese Painting
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A Conversation with a Skull
A skull answers Zhuangzi in a dream and overturns his assumptions about life and death. A short retelling from chapter 18 of the Zhuangzi, accompanied by five of my earlier works.
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When the World Shatters
Recent paintings, unfinished works and studies accompany my reflections on war, lost trust and environmental destruction. When the World Shatters explores how fragmented forms and expressive brushwork can echo both global upheaval and the inner distress of the individual, while leaving room for renewal.
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Dot and Emptiness: The Essence of Chinese Art
How can a small ink mark change an entire painting? Brush exercises, ensō circles and Liang Kai’s Li Bai Strolling lead from the making of a dot to the active role of unpainted space.
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Don’t Let the Old Man In
On resisting bitterness and keeping an open spirit: political images, memories of Prague and paintings from my ZEN BRUT yearbook for 2025.
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Dao and Zen Again: Applying Eastern Philosophy to Contemporary Ink Painting
During an enforced pause in autumn 2025, vivid dreams led me back to sparse abstract painting. I look at the warm and cool marks through my interest in Dao and Zen, then recount one dream alongside photographs from earlier travels.
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Terra Dystopia
Terra Dystopia began as a question about the summer of 2025. Paintings, studies and fragments accompany my reflections on recurring dystopian themes—from inequality and surveillance to environmental damage—without serving as literal illustrations.
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The Abundance of Modesty
Cheng Yutian’s calligraphies and seals of 謙受益 bring back memories of learning in China. Through the image of an overflowing vessel and my friendship with Wang Jinhuai, I reflect on modesty as a willingness to receive.
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Cracks in the Silence
Paintings made in troubled times: my search for silence, the vulnerability of childhood, and environmental damage beneath an attractive surface.
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State of the Art 2025
State of the Art 2025 is a series of abstract self-portraits within Nothingness in Color. I explore omission, colour, musical rhythm and the dialogue between small gestures and open space.
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Spring Potpourri
Spring walks, new paintings and homemade jiaozi: a personal potpourri of landscapes, experiments with colour, political satire and good food shared at home.
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Nothingness in Color
Nothingness in Color continues my imagined journey to the Zen master. On black paper, scattered colour and calligraphic marks explore rhythm, open space and the search for an unaffected artistic voice.
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Goodbye to the Winter
After a difficult winter, I explore light through abstraction and reduction: white marks on black paper, a homage to Christo, minimalist ink painting and larger works that turn towards spring.
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Depression: A Journey Through the Long Winter.
Paintings from a difficult winter: self-doubt, memories of childhood and experiments with colour after my Zen master series. A personal reflection on depression and the work it prompted.
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Journey to the Zen Master
Part II moves through the imagined environment of the Zen master, from rugged mountain forms to open space and green gardens. The paintings and original AI readings are followed by memories of my journeys on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
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The Journey to the Zen Master
Part I of an imagined journey to a Zen master. Eight paintings follow a train ride from the station toward an increasingly open landscape, accompanied by my reflections and the AI interpretations used in the original experiment.
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The Dao of Annual Planning in 2024
Looking back at 2024, I consider how Daoist thinking shaped my planning, daily business and painting. Alongside the year’s artworks, I reflect on SEO, AI, investing and the room a plan needs for change.
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Emperor Huizong: When Rulers Still Loved Art
Emperor Huizong’s bird-and-flower paintings and Slender Gold calligraphy still fascinate me. His cultural achievements also raise a difficult question: how does artistic sensitivity relate to the moral responsibilities of a ruler?
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Wabi Sabi and the Aesthetics of Imperfection
In this article, I share my personal approach to Wabi Sabi through paintings, Japanese aesthetics and reflections on Chinese xieyi painting. Beyond repaired pottery, I explore imperfection, impermanence and the space left for a viewer’s imagination.
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Theme and Variations
A fading blossom changes through a series of ink drawings. As the stem disappears and the petals become less descriptive, Chinese verse, white space and musical rhythm take on more of the work. A personal account of removing and adding.
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Daoist Aspects in My Paintings
Recent paintings explore the relationships between sparse marks and dense black, stillness and movement, form and open space. Music and scientific reading provide further questions, while close details reveal how a figure or landscape can emerge from abstraction.
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What Is Reality? What Is Nothingness?
A painter’s comparison of quantum physics, Zen Buddhism and Daoism, with attention to their different meanings of reality and emptiness. Abstract works and optical illusions lead back to questions of perception, form and the space between marks.
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Visit of the Old Zen Master and Other Nonzens
An imagined Zen master moves through seven paintings and a series of short verses. A personal exploration of looking, growing older, emptiness and letting go, with the images leaving room for questions rather than fixed lessons.
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Summer Inventory
Taking inventory turns up paintings I thought were lost and others waiting to be reworked. This summer collection brings together Zen-inspired gestures, calligraphy, music, dance and sea studies, followed by a personal memory of a reception in July 2024.
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Can We Hear a Painting?
Can music be translated into painting? An exploration of rhythm, silence and sound through abstract art inspired by Wagner, Bruckner, Bach, Shakuhachi, Arvo Pärt and Brian Eno.
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Emptiness, Space, and Depth
A spring collection exploring what happens between the marks: sparse drawings, dense black forms, musical references and abstract landscapes. A personal account of simplifying my work and finding new possibilities through contrast and conversation.
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Essence in Art: Less Is More
A few painted experiments ask what remains when detail and decoration fall away. Short verses, an ensō variation, jazz and Daoist imagery offer different ways of looking for the felt character of a subject.
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Wu Wei: Effortless Action in Daoism and Chinese Painting
Wu wei does not mean a lack of skill or attention. Cook Ding’s story offers a way to consider painting: learning what the material allows, responding without force, and knowing when to slow down or put the brush down.
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Day Dream Job
At seventeen I imagined earning a living by dreaming. These paintings return to the brief interval when dream fragments fade into waking life. An extra revisits my experience of using AI to improve the language of a blog article.
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The Flow of Qi in Chinese Ink Painting
Two paintings become a way to follow the flow of qi: through brushstrokes, intervals and the directions that connect them. Annotated diagrams trace one possible walk through a composition.
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Wabi-Sabi, Japanese Paper & the Beauty of Empty Space
An unsatisfying sheet of paper leads me back to Tanizaki, the character of materials and the shape of empty space. These studies ask what a painting can gain when more of the paper is left to speak.
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Bada Shanren & the Daoist Concept of Ziran (Naturalness)
What makes a few brushstrokes feel alive? Bada Shanren’s fish lead me from the Daoist idea of ziran to empty space, abstract painting and my own experiments with “fishness”.
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Ego vs. Self in Daoism: A Western & Asian View
From Saint Anthony resisting temptation to a figure resting against a tiger: paintings lead into questions of desire, self-assertion and how Daoist and Zen texts can change the way we look.
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Dao in Chinese Poetry: Li Bai and the Wild Geese
Li Bai’s Quiet Night Thought and the Chan image of geese reflected in water lead from opposites and empty space to spontaneity in painting. A personal memory of Wang Ziwu accompanies the reading.
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Daoist Talks (VI): Principles of Dao in Painting
A bamboo leaf, a dancer’s movement, a red peony: these examples help me think about naturalness in painting. The apparent freedom of a brushstroke rests on practice, yet must remain alive.
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Liang Kai: The Story of Eight Eminent Monks – Daoist Talks (IV)
A close look at Liang Kai’s Eight Eminent Monks, followed by a personal memory of meeting the painter Lin Kai in Beijing in 1982. Buddhist stories, a red-robed Bodhidharma, and an inscription whose humour took years to unfold.
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Daoist Talks (III): The Cosmos in One Dot
A practical exercise in looking at brush dots: their shape, rhythm and place in a painting. With examples by Shitao and a reflection on the relationship between a small mark, the ensō and the whole picture.
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Daoist Talks (II): The Basics
Daoism in Chinese painting: a personal introduction to xieyi, calligraphic brushwork, yin and yang, and the ways a landscape invites us to look. With examples by Shitao, Su Shi, Yun Shouping and Dong Qichang.
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Hakuin’s Koan: The Sound of One Hand Clapping
An open hand, a dark ground, and a question that resists a quick answer. My painting approaches Hakuin’s one-hand kōan as a meditation aid, rather than an illustration of a solution.
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Farewell Beijing, Hello Chongqing: A Traveling Exhibition
The move of my 2022 exhibition from Beijing to Chongqing brought back three visits, encounters with painter Xue Mingde, painting on the Yangtze and an unforgettable evening at the opera.
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Zen and the Arts: Emptiness, Simplicity and Presence
What do I mean by a Zen moment in painting? Childhood images, a donkey sketch, calligraphy and landscape details offer a personal approach to presence, movement and empty space.
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Ophelia Painting (2022) – A Quiet Contemporary Study
My Ophelia painting returns to a familiar motif through abstraction, transience and change. A separate note recalls an unexpected reunion by email with my former roommate in Beijing.
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In Guangming Daily Again: Art and Cultural Exchange
Guangming Daily published another report about my work and cultural exchange between Austria and China on 30 April 2022. Alongside the newspaper pages, I share a new turquoise ink painting.
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Teaser for Next Exhibition
A short virtual gallery tour from April 2022, with works on paper shown at an imaginary scale. At the time, a planned exhibition in Beijing had been postponed again.
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Études – Small Studies and Quiet Experiments
I use études for the small, open-ended experiments that differ from studies for a finished painting. Three sheets explore movement, opposites and the way a title can change what we see.
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metaverse (III)
A dragon, the first signs of order and a few miles before the end of time: three paintings explore the boundaries of my imagined metaverse and the expressive power of leaving things out.
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Studies for Oil Paintings – Early Ideas on Paper
Three rough studies help me think through composition, colour and movement before returning to oil painting. Landscapes, the sea and organic forms offer starting points for work that cannot simply repeat my ink techniques.
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my kind of metaverse (I)
In February 2022, I began exploring a metaverse of my own through painting. These first works and their details bring the microcosm and macrocosm into an imagined world whose direction is still open.
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Flyer for my Beijing Exhibition
A February 2022 note on the flyer for my planned Beijing exhibition: sixteen recent works, the painting used in the design, and the people whose support made my participation possible.
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Cats in Chinese Painting
Three cat paintings raise a question: what makes one more compelling than another? Looking closely at Zhu Da’s cat, I reflect on what is left unpainted, the appeal of simplicity and wu wei.
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The Meaning of a Dot in Chinese Painting & Calligraphy
A dot is a short stroke with a life of its own. Brushwork exercises and three versions of one painting explore what this small mark can change.
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New Abstract Surrealist Ink Paintings
Three unfinished paintings, a few weeks of distance and the small changes that can make a work feel complete.
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Waltzing Corona: A Triptych on Balance and Yin-Yang
Three panels on dance and absence at the start of 2022, with a close look at their brushwork, empty spaces and shifting balance.
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Remembering a Landscape: Yin and Yang in Ink Painting
A simple landscape composition returns in paintings made over some thirty years. Earlier ink works and digital filmstrip experiments bring memory into the picture.
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State of the Art: A Self-Portrait Series
A selection from my State of the Art self-portraits, from 1977 to 2021, with memories of earlier work, friendships and the pandemic years.
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Power, Elegance and Savageness: New Abstract Works
Three abstract paintings return to a persistent question: how can force, elegance and savageness coexist without beauty becoming mere prettiness?
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The Essence of Chinese Painting: Emptiness and the Meaning of White
How can unpainted paper become as expressive as a brushstroke? A painter’s reflection on light, open space, Liang Kai and Bada Shanren, with Daoist and Buddhist texts kept in their distinct contexts.
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Mu Qi’s Six Persimmons: An Interpretation
My interpretation of Six Persimmons follows its ink tones, intervals and relationships, reading a life journey and a host with five guests in the small group.
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A Second Painting After Huang Binhong – 黄宾虹
A landscape after Huang Binhong becomes a shared work through a fellow painter’s inscription, prompting a closer look at calligraphy and collectors’ seals.
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Zha Shibiao: A Simple Painting and Yet a Treasure
Two intertwined trees, a boatman and an inscription: a close reading of Zha Shibiao’s album leaf, with reflections on brushwork, host and guest, and the space beyond the marks.
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Copying Old Masters: Huang Binhong (黄宾虹)
Three comparisons between landscapes by Huang Binhong and my own studies, with reflections on brushwork, ink, open space and learning from earlier masters.
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The Essence of Chinese Painting (III)
How does a painting guide the eye? I explore beginning, development, turn and resolution through Pan Tianshou’s compositions, implied connections and the active role of empty space.
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Analyzing a Simple Painting by Qi Baishi 齐白石
A cabbage, two red chilies and an inscription: I look closely at how Qi Baishi turns an everyday subject into a lively composition of brushwork, color and open space.
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The Principle of Balance in Chinese Painting
How can a small bird balance a heavy branch? I explore the relationships between brushstrokes, painted forms and empty space through nine illustrations from Chinese painting and calligraphy.
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Protective Masks in 1979 Beijing: An Oil Painting
The masks in this 1979 oil painting caught my attention again in 2020. The crowd belongs to an earlier Beijing: people gathered at the Democracy Wall to read and discuss wall newspapers.
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Student Prank with Wang Ziwu 王子武
During my studies in Beijing, I copied a painting Wang Ziwu had given a fellow student. A harmless swap became awkward when our professor admired the copy.
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When I First Met Lu Yanshao 陸儼少
Watching Lu Yanshao paint at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing challenged my assumption that the energy of a landscape must come from speed.
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Chinese Seal Carving: History and Key Terms
A small red seal can change the balance of an entire painting. I reflect on my fascination with Chinese seal carving, look at four examples and explain how the stone, its inscription and its printed impression belong together.