"A dynamic and meditatively charged ink painting that captures the ancient, dragon-like spirit of Kyoto's black pines through expressive brushwork and classic spatial harmony."
-------- Review from Future Art & Design Award
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Project description
Sanjūsangen-dō in Kyoto, Japan, is world-renowned for housing a vast array of wooden statues of the Thousand-Armed Kannon. Visiting the temple this spring, I found the main hall profoundly solemn, yet it was the black pines standing before it that truly caught my eye.
With their gnarled and intertwining branches, these pines stretch out with the majestic presence of soaring dragons, overlapping in layered elegance and vigor. Moved by this sight, I sought to capture their spirit through traditional ink painting.
The work opens up space across a horizontal plane, pairing steady, prominent calligraphy on the right with a rhythmic swirl of branches on the left. Unadorned and unpretentious, the brushwork seeks merely to retain the momentum of their upright form and reflect the vitality of their verdant spirit. Interwoven with subtle ink tones and cool indigo hues, it preserves that quiet moment of contemplation beneath the ancient temple’s pines upon the paper.