Painting the Dao

47 recollection of which friend gave them to me. This stage establishes the orientation and subject matter. In the ink-painting tradition, grey shades of black ink are considered colours, and colour opens up potential for abstraction. Each layer has the two-fold task of augmenting the gradually establishing subject matter and shifting the focus to abstraction. When creating landscape elements, or anything else, layers of abstraction build from lighter and darker areas and virgin white paper, 14 becoming a powerful formal language. In paintings where multiple layers of often subtle changes in colour are added, the result can be very complex. Colours can carry subtle messages, like cinnabar red, which I use fre- quently. Cinnabar is an ore of mercury and is a basic compound in al- chemical practice, which makes it appropriate for strange stones, though they are rarely red in the real world, the ore of cinnabar tending to be a formally unattractive lump. ak16.21 is one of a series of works I painted of strange stones mounted on stands. I chose the colour of the stones for esoteric meaning and for unfettered aesthetic preference, and the stands became a calligraphic dance with the stones. Beyond the Stage of Time, the stones were not even constrained by gravity, and several of them leapt off or floated above their stands. As I paint, ideas pass in and out of mind, theoretical musings and mind surfing as a meditational soundtrack to the brush. Possible titles and in- scriptions surface during this process but are never recorded in writing as I go, since if I forget whatever it was that seemed important, it wasn’t. Recording is antithetical to serious mind surfing, although, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, ‘Mind surfing is far too important to be taken seriously’, as are all forms of creativity. Because I approach painting as process, each painting becomes a ‘forever painting’: unconstrained by an anticipated result or the amount of time it might take to produce it, I approach each painting as if it might take the rest of my life to complete. One of these days I shall be right, but in the meantime painting is the equivalent of adventure tourism: boots on, ready to go, no idea what awaits but confident of excitement and the chance to discover new realms of existence and meaning. Every layer augments the process, lifts the excitement a notch or two, and each must acknowledge existing layers. But as they accumulate, even as they coalesce into ever more definite surface subject matter, the focus is increasingly on joining the gathering energy, on abstraction. It is a balance in which the subject matter is de-emphasised to the point of becoming ak16.21 Dreams Arcane Ink and watercolour on cloud-dragon paper mounted on xuan paper 250 × 124 cm, Hong Kong, 2016