THE MAGIC OF INK

Ink painting is a traditional Chinese art form. Water and ink are mixed on an inkstone to create different shades of black, then applied with a brush to hand-made bast paper. The amount of water, the brush and the stroke itself control the ink’s intensity and width.

Traditional ink painting usually joins image and poem. Making an ink painting is like writing, which is why it is also called literati painting—scholar painting—characterized by freehand lyricism. This is very different from Western painting's focus on geometry and perspective.

Ink painting pursues the mood of poetry and a sense for nature. Between being and not-being, fullness and emptiness, yin and yang, it expresses the relationship of humans and nature, change of time and space, and the unity of the substance and its boundary. It is closer to philosophy and culture. The beauty of ink painting is not just visual, it is spiritual.

Fan Xueyi likes the uncertainty of ink. It is like life: fluid, seemingly there and not there. As ink changes, the mind perceives the relationship between oneself and nature. What flows from the tip of the brush is a map of the heart. In today's flood of multimedia, this traditional medium lets us wander through mountains, rivers, trees and flowers—between heaven and earth. Gaining the power of wisdom through this process is simply an elegant way of living, a pursuit of Zen.

Fan Xueyi & Wolfram Anders