Sumi ink, watercolor, acrylic on canvas

Each canvas either 30”x40” (46 x 101 cm) or 36”x 48” (92 x 125 cm)

These paintings explore the belief that the path to enlightenment can be both dense and complex, and straightforward and simple. They were borne from meditations on mortality, existence, and the desire to find a place of peace which exists beyond the physical world, and their creation was influenced by the following quote by Rumi:

“My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless ; 'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call. ”

The first painting carries countless layered brushstrokes of white and grey ink, each compounding and building upon one another. Beneath the ink, horizontal sections of the canvas below were masked off, then revealed once the ink dried. These engagements with the surface appear to hum and vibrate, extending off the canvas and into three-dimensional space.

The others feature a single brushstroke against a layered watercolor background. The stroke was synchronized with the exhalation of a single breath. Its trace suggests “becoming:” an entity gradually being revealed, or perhaps fading out of existence.