Stillness no.5
Oil on canvas (36 x 60 in.)
Abstract Series
I think of my work as unfinished provocations, attempts to stimulate the imagination into experiencing stillness, transience and ultimately, a sense of mystery. My aesthetics are inspired by the abstract expressionists; my psychological journey is inspired by the Tao Te Ching. The emotions in these paintings arise from my doubts and unease about mortality. These paintings are a field where I am cultivating my inner stillness and learning to love the ephemeral nature of beauty.
My art strives to embody the Tao Te Ching’s meditation on transcendence. Lao Tzu wrote these paradoxical lines: “Soft overcomes hard, weak overcomes strong.” This concept of wu wei, or “effortlessness,” is at the heart of my creative process. Lao Tzu’s eternal truth is that stillness and transience together form a mystical whole, one we can only understand through personal experience. The Tao Te Ching assures us, “Indeed, the hidden and the manifest give birth to each other.” In my oil paintings, I aim to hide what is manifest and make manifest what is hidden, in order to create new possibilities.
Ephemeral no.9
Oil on canvas (48 x 36 in.)
Composition and Color Study Watercolor On Paper
In the first series, Stillness, I am making visible a field of emptiness. Working with oil as a medium requires long stretches of time when the canvas is drying and I must cease to actively “work.” I learn to respect the visual silence of empty spaces and I resist filling them with shapes. The question that the painting poses to me and to the viewer is, “How do you know when you have the right kind of silence?”
The second series, Ephemeral, uses complementary colors and a variety of gray tones. I find beauty in the fact that gray is a color you obtain by combining complementary colors. This makes it arguably the richest, most complete color, despite its paradoxical lack of color. These paintings zoom in on a single moment and remove the borders between objects and shapes. By combining various temperatures of gray tones, I aim to show transience at play; shapes come together for a few moments, then part and drift into new combinations. This reflects the psychological process of yielding to life and accepting the passage of time.
