Scrolls: Chadao serie 2023-2024

In 2023 I started with a brand new project in collaboration with people from all over the world. It all began with my fascination for the Chinese language and calligraphy. The mysterious characters put down on paper with so much attention and focus and concentration fascinated me enormously. When I was invited to have lunch with a Chinese family and saw that after lunch Mr. Changan Dong took out his ricepaper, black ink and brushes and started, as his daily ritual is, to write poems on paper, the plan to make a combination between my paintings and poems written in other languages, was born.

The combination of the two was a completion.
The results were mysterious images where we are invited to only stay with, feel and experience them without trying to explain them. After all it is not possible by only thinking to find and experience Truth. Truth is an experience and it can only find place when there is no thinking anymore. Compare it with a parabel: if you’re trying to dissect it it becomes a normal story. If you don’t try to dissect it but listen to the music of it, and drink in the meaning and poetry of it, you will discover that it points to the future, to something that can be there but not yet is. It is transcendental. As a finger pointing to the moon while not holding on to the finger.
The images express that which is cannot be told, the Truth cannot be described in words. It is that which cannot be declared. The Unspeakable. Like life that cannot be captured in theories, it is comprehensive and endless. A theory cannot be open, a parable is open, says something and leaves a lot unsaid only pointing towards something. They go further and are transcendental. You have to live a parable, she has to become your heartbeat, your breath, she has to become your inner space, than you’ll reach her meaning.

Together with the person that will write in his/her language the poem on paper we choose which poems will be used for the artworks. All of them should have an transcendental meaning.

The Chinese serie is about CHADAO: the way of tea. Calligraphy by Changan Dong.

Su Shi poem from Song dynasty.
To make the best tea, one has to collect fresh water from a flowing stream. Standing on a fishing stone to reach for the deep clear water., boil it on an open flame fire. With a large ladle to scoop water to an urn, together with the reflection of the moon. Small ladle to gently spoon them into delicate bottle. Tea leaves turn and churn in snow white bubbles. Pouring tea sounds like hissing among pines. After three bowls of tea my empty guts are at ease. I sit in this remote village enduring with night watchman’s drum.