No Eyes Viewing Wall at the Brooklyn Zen Center presents:
Daily Cloud – paintings by Paul Miyamoto and Karen Dana
Artist Talk and Opening Reception: Friday May 21, 7-9 PM
“Strange though this may sound, not knowing where one is going, being lost, being a loser, reveals the greatest possible faith and optimism, as against collective security and collective significance. To believe, one must have lost God; to paint, one must have lost art.” – Gerhard Richter
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent upon the existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close.” – Thich Nhat Hahn
Daily Cloud explores a moment in the practice of two painters: Paul Miyamoto and Karen Dana as they tackle the same subject. Clouds seem to be visible masses of water or frozen crystals suspended over celestial bodies; we perceive them as something more than air and less than object as they loom above our busy lives. Paint seems to be a viscous color-bearing medium that relates to the liquid part of our bodies but whose careful application by practitioners comes to embody a grasping for metaphor and meaning in the world of appearances. So perhaps the practice of painting clouds involves wading deep into a territory where distinctions between body and mind are relaxed. But painting and looking at paintings is actually rather simple- probably even a strangely familiar feeling despite being beyond the capacity of our defining mind. From this familiar place, many questions may arise and float by. For example, when we mindfully view each drip, smear, and glistening of paint on Paul and Karen’s canvas, do we tap into the psychological space of lived experience in their studio practice, or has the cloud nourished a fresh Spring plant?