My project proposal Positive Energy & Compassion with No Ego – An Exploration Through Painting is an exploration into the profound meaning behind creating a thing with positive energy and no attached ego, and how that affects the outcome, and others that view it. 

If you were to hang a huge banner of a painting by Van Gogh over the front of a spiritual building, it would make sense. But why? It’s not because of the subject matter. It’s because of the Artist’s love and sincerity for that thing painted. That tree, that person, that chair are painted with a care as if to say, that chair could be a Buddha and everything exists on an equal level. Or that chair is, or it was, or it could be you on some timeline. The ridiculous and awesome aim of Positive Energy & Compassion with No Ego – An Exploration Through Painting is to tap into the energy of life that is flowing around everything. This will influence the style of this project’s painting and the subject matter. Could the outcome be like Hilma af Klint, or a Rauschenberg White painting, or a Jackson Pollock, or Paul Klee, or… ? My guess is all, or none of the above. I can see the art containing shapes, text in several languages, lines, scratches, thin paint, thick paint, recognizable elements and not. In the end, how can the visual result actually be anything when everything is the same thing and less is more. That’s the beauty of this project. How to visually represent interconnectedness, individuality, humanity and emptiness while being influenced by the history of everything from the never ending past to the infinite future. And doing it with a passion and love for the energy/chi in things like the artist Van Gogh had.

I feel very lucky to have come across two thoughtful inspiring teachers in my lifetime, even though 35 years separates the two experiences. Cliff Edwards, author of Van Gogh and God, taught Zen Buddhism at VCU. And Robert A.F. Thurman, translated The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Liberation Through Understanding in the Between, taught Indian & Tibetan River of Buddhism at Columbia. These experiences and the decades of life in-between will be the reason for this project’s success.

With the help of tools like Buddhism, Van Gogh and Philosophy, this project has the goal of stepping out into the world, separating from the Ego, and letting the wind blow it away into particles repurposed as something useful. I plan to visit Buddhist centers in New York and or New Jersey to help gain a better grasp. To gain further insight into the Chi behind Vincent’s paintings, I will study his work in person at the MOMA, MET, Guggenheim and Brooklyn Museum.