Brain Storm

A long, narrow, vertical painting hangs in my New York studio. It is a set of twelve images of a man and a horse, painted in ink and brush on rice paper. I hang few artworks in the studio, but this has occupied its place on the wall for over a decade.

The twelve images make up the first animated sequence at the start of the video Brain Storm. Set to a walking cadence by the animation, the pair walk onward steadily, unwaveringly, silently, and seemingly with contentment. I love the way the horse’s tail swings once in a while. It gives a small clue to her personality and a glimpse of her inner mind. Initially the background of the video is paper-white, then, quickly, ink droplets, lines, washes, and splashes drip down or swell up to form an ever-changing abstracted landscape.

The making of the video took a couple of years, and had several iterations before its final form in Brain Storm. I would have no idea at the time that this work would propel me on a decade-long investigation into Chinese ink and ways to read and dissect literati landscape painting. I have undertaken projects that used more than three tons of ink to paint live plants in nature or manmade nature. I laser-cut 300,000 square feet of paper-like materials to create sculptural landscapes that are three-dimensional paintings people can walk through and explore. I made an opera that fused ancient Kun opera and Western opera singing voices, staged in an ebony garden set that could be opened and closed like a painting scroll. I continue to create luminous ink paintings on glass and mirrored surfaces that speak to collective and personal myths, stories, and symbology.

The genesis of this decade of exploration in a myriad of forms, scales, materials, contents, and concepts began with the ink play in Brain Storm. I have found that a deep dive into a material or an aesthetic tradition can be a source of unlimited creative energy when approached with the spirit of freedom and experimentation. These wells of inspiration can be found all around. Bolstered by the boundless richness, I press on in this adventure, like the horse in ink, putting one hoof in front of another, steadfast and resolute.

Text by Jennifer Wen Ma, from Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century (The Phillips Collection in association with Giles, 2021)