Painting the Dao

145 ak24.102 Water, Pine and Stone Conversation , No.11 Ink and watercolour on cloud-dragon paper 190 × 98 cm, Hong Kong, December 2024 Six artist seals 水松石山房 Shuisongshi shanfang (Water, Pine and Stone Retreat) 竹虛老人 Zhuxu laoren (Old man as empty inside as bamboo) 墨者不朽 Mozhe buxiu (Let ink be my immortality) 養石閒人 Yangshi xianren (Idler who cherishes stones) 如如居士 Ruru Jushi (Retired scholar who believes all doctrines equal) 石狂 Shikuang (Stone fool) inscr iption In the face of our failed intelligence, smart enough to control nature but not yet wise enough to avoid the consequences of doing so, perhaps I can make amends by recycling ancient pines in the wilderness, long spared the woodsman’s axe but threatened after millennia by encroaching humanity. The pines are indifferent to time, fate or the irony of knowledge, but as I hold the brush, I am not. I can reduce them to calligraphic essence and give them new life. Inscribed by the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, winter 2024.