himalayan painting

  Even further toward the edge of nothingness and invisibility is the materiality of a painting.  A painting is a strange anachronistic object in the age of digital pictures. Like sacred reliquaries containing the bones of saints, paintings are reminders of what cannot be seen. The paintings of the Himalaya invite the viewer to enter into the solitude of contemplation.

The mountains are dreams of creation, another kingdom, of sublime beauty, where no one can live, but which draws us up toward the purity of intention. These mountains enclose a thousand Buddhist shrines, villages founded by flying llamas, a million steps, and little gardens with tiny chickens  hiding under baskets. The paintings reflect impossibly effortless attempts, not to paint a scene, but to capture the gesture of the clouds turning into mountains turning into clouds. the ineffable painting that is perfect in its possibility, the painting just before it takes form as a painting.