"Blue Cascade" (2025) is a dance between form and formlessness, energy and matter, landscape and abstraction.
Through the dissolving or dissolution of form, and its reconfiguration through thousands of individual hand-painted calligraphic strokes, a sense of reality shifts, inviting an alternative perspective. This expanded view of nature encourages audiences to move beyond the "real" and the "perceived," engaging with formal elements that reveal cosmic principles that may only exist at the peripherals of the mind.
"Blue Cascade" employs the two foundational characteristics associated with traditional Chinese painting - ink wash and calligraphic strokes. In this particular iteration the rule “splash ink, spare ink” embraces tension between chance and intention. This directive “splash ink, spare ink” can be traced back to writings from Ming dynasty painter, calligrapher, connoisseur and art theorist, Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636).
“Splash ink” is employed to the first layer – a vibrant colour field applied liberally and gesturally. The colour field reflects the systematic brushstrokes in traditional Chinese calligraphy however scale invites greater corporality to the process. The prodigious size of the canvas (6x 5 ft) transforms these strokes to embodied gestures, repeated systematically, emulating the downward cascade of water falling in great volume. Properties of water are further echoed in the fluidity of the paint and its generous application, which streams with a tangible gravity that pulls mass along with force and movement.
Conversely, the overlaying white calligraphic strokes adhere to the rule of “spare ink”, with each brush load often used to its exhaustion. The effect provides a tonal variance, adding to the sensibly of light dancing on water. The monumentality in the expanse of colour is juxtaposed by the delicate nature of the thousands of tiny calligraphic strokes. They sparkle, jewel-like, along the emergent linear formations of colour beneath. This overlaying matrix is formed from an automated repetition of 5 Chinese calligraphic strokes also applied in a downward direction like the script of illegible poetry. The strokes are formed from China’s ancient and indigenous observation of nature and reflect the primordial algorithm of the natural world. They are traditionally understood as capable of expressing all things in the nature and more broadly, when wielded with the ancient method of Chinese painting and its underpinning philosophy, they form the language for expressing 天理 li (cosmic truth).
Rather than focusing on literal translation of form, I focus on the structure or systems that form the artwork. There is a collaborative element that exists with the technology of my materials, the methodologies employed in painting and the desire to translate unique and personal human experiences into a visual form. The process of creation becomes less about my own sense of knowing and more about how the artwork reveals “truth”, shifting how reality itself is perceived. This dialogue with the physical and metaphysical, transforms material and gesture into a new vocabulary of meaning and for translating human experience and expanding perception. Through the act of my creation, the invisible is made visible and the intangible, tangible.
Digitalised and Intertwined Blockchain Provenance
Contemporary science and technology can enrich and augment ancient and established foundations. Digitalising and minting Blue Cascade on the Ethereum Blockchain enables a deepened provenance that is akin to the provenance of collector seals and colophons in the Chinese painting tradition.
Signature seals and collector colophons are an integral aspect of traditional Chinese painting. A seals or chop: a small stone carved signature seal of the artist or collectors name form an essential compositional element but are also ink imprinted as an authentication for documents, paintings and calligraphy. Today it is uncommon for a collector to physically alter an artwork from their collection.
Inviting Collector Colophons
This ancient form of authentication and provenance is echoed in the employment of contemporary Blockchain provenance, with which this digital artifact is inscribed. The signature seal acknowledges the Chinese tradition in which my creative work is steeped, while Blockchain technology further fortifies my creative outputs. Two modalities juxtapose in their writing of provenance – one historic and the other cutting edge - one hand painted and the other digitally etched. Together they intersect to enrich and reflect my artwork’s multi-temporal nature.
Physical painting: acrylic on canvas
72” x 60” (182.88cm x 152.4cm)
