Enlightenment in Suspension

It began with a line from Zhuangzi and the sound of rain. I closed my eyes and saw a waterfall, pouring from the depths of memory. I wanted to paint not a mountain, but a state of being “in suspension”—the unresolved anxieties of modern life. Then, an epiphany: a waterfall is also suspended, yet it transforms this state into a force of flow.

I let ink bleed to create blurred edges like the verges of memory with hesitant. I layered dark ink like pent-up feelings, unreal cyan to form the waterfall—an act of rebellion piercing the gray world of ink wash. A pine, painted with a dry brush, struggles from a rock crevice, a tribute to resilience.

This painting is a “parable of falling.” The waterfall is the visual and semantic core, asking: How do we face life’s inevitable falls? The pine answers: it is bent and old, yet it holds fast. The tension between them is the inner drama. This is not a painting to be understood, but to be felt. It asks not “What do you see?” but “What do you feel?”

#ink wash painting #chinese ink painting #cyan waterfall #zen ink wash #spiritual meditative #resilience and hope #contemporary asian #monochromatic