I begin with the empty expanse of white rice paper or silk, and apply indelible black Sumi ink to it. Black and white -- the most basic, primeval forces engage in a dialogue of infinite shades. Each brush stroke is precise and unforgiving, yet open and full of possibilities. Unlike in oil painting, a mistake cannot be covered with another layer of paint. My paintings lay their essence bare for the viewer’s eyes.
The technique I use is two millennia old, and was originally practiced by Zen monks in Japan as a way to train the mind and spirit in meditation and unforced precision. Miyamoto Musashi, Japan’s most legendary swordsman, was also a practitioner of this art technique.
In parallel with the brush-painted core, I create a conceptual environment inside which each painting lives. To do that, I have wounded my paintings with rifles, sent pieces of them into space, and created labyrinths of broken mirrors upon them—all in order to create a new, poetic and cerebral reality inside which the black ink brushstrokes live.
My paintings are intentionally left unfinished, leaving room for the viewer to interact. The brush strokes capture the essence, but do not connect—leaving open, incomplete spaces in-between. The mirrors, cuts or bullet holes disrupt the texture of the painting to reveal messages hidden deep within the world of the artwork. Each painting is a poetic puzzle—I leave it to the viewer’s brain to connect the fragmented spaces around the brushstrokes, to fill in the shapes, to add colors. Each of my artworks is recreated every time it is viewed—in an artistic collaboration between painter and viewer, a joint journey of discovery, introspection and building artistic bridges between ideas. Each of my paintings is a living organism, reinvented through the eyes of the viewer—reborn inside the fragile moment out of the viewer’s mindset, emotions and intellectual energy.
