Chinese Brush Painting

Chinese Brush Painting is an ancient contemplative art that has developed continuously over a period of six thousand years. The work that I was trained to do was always done in the traditional manner and style on various traditional papers and some silk.  I studied seriously for many years in this way. Gradually I was able to develop a style of doing this that that expresses some of my own creativity and perception.  I combine Chinese mineral based colors, fine  inks, Japanese and Western water color paint on various kinds of Chinese and Japanese quality papers.  This kind of art differs from the Western tradition in that the objects or subjects of the painting are not necessarily “real” but when experienced by the viewer is  suggestive or evocative of something beyond what your eye perceives.  A master painting reveals some true aspect of the “spirit” of the subject.   You, in a sense, are “completing” and finishing the details from your own minds eye.  The paintings are truly an interactive medium.

Chinese masters were gifted artists accomplished calligraphers and respected poets.  The paintings you see in museums or exhibits of the ancient and modern masters are in a deeper sense more than the sum of the parts of the painting, the calligraphy and the poem.  Artists traditionally study under a master teacher for many years and the techniques as well as the awareness of “the way” of the art and how it is created are then passed down generation to generation.

The creation of the painting itself is a form of meditation and each painting can be considered an object of beauty as well as a focus point for meditation, imagination or relaxation and restorative healing.