The concepts of Yūgen and Ma.

October 23, 2024

Yūgen is usually translated as “mysterious profundity.” Yūgen means the beauty that we can feel sense into an object, even though the beauty doesn’t exist in the literal sense of the word and cannot be seen directly. Yūgen is a sense not to enjoy the superficial beauty of an object, which is in front of our eyes but to enhance the beauty more impressive by imagining its latent beauty. For example, we think a flower is beautiful when we see it. This beauty is the superficial beauty. The flower has a past of withstanding wind, rain, and snow until now, and will someday wither, however beautiful it is now. Although the beautiful flower itself impresses us, the beauty will be more impressive than the superficial beauty, when we can imagine its past and future.

If you conceptualize Yūgen as a suggestiveness, lingering memory, aftertaste, or implication, you can more easily understand Yūgen. Imagination is essential for feeling Yūgen, so many artists have, since ancient times in Japan, developed a method to encourage their viewers to exercise their imagination. Unpainted blank space, simplification, asymmetry, irregularity, imperfection, quiet colors, composition, gold paint – these are examples, in the Japanese-style.

We cannot experience Yūgen if we don’t take the time to slow down…

The Japanese concept of Ma has been described as a pause in time, an interval or emptiness in space. Ma is the time and space life needs to breath, to feel and connect. If we have no time, if our space is restricted, we cannot grow. This universal principle applies to every aspect of life.

Together, these concepts guide my latest work.

Sculpture Series - process

March 06, 2024

It’s been a busy winter. Lots of new compositions courtesy of AI. One of the most time consuming part of my painting is creating the compositions. I spend countless hours looking at photos and creating the images before I paint. Since I started the new sculpture series I have often struggled to find compositions that appeal to me…

This sculpture was created by Ai using a set of word prompts I use to create images I can then work from. Here is one I am currently exporing:

Next step is to finalize the cropping and color.

Painting. In this case I decided to do a quick study in an afternoon.

Hopefully this helps show a little of my process.

Sculpture Series

July 01, 2022

I have owned a book about Versailles for many years and it has been a constant source of material and inspiration. I have admired the mist covered fountain photos but never understood how they would fit into my work. On a recent trip to France I spent many days in the museums of Paris admiring the paintings and sculptures. The many marble sculptures has brought the idea of these back into my thoughts. Building on the light in my Carravagio Series and the sculptural quality in my recent work, I will be applying my ideas and techniques to paintings of sculpture.