To me, stones are not simple materials or canvases for painting pictures on. Among all those numerous stones on a river bank, one stone looking like an animal catches my eye. When I find a stone, I feel that stone has found me too. Stones have their intentions, and I consider my encounters with them as cues they give me; it’s OK to go ahead and paint what I see on them.
01. Mom And Baby Sea Otter
02. Hamster
03. Blue Bird
04. Red Fox
05. Owl
So the stones I decide to paint on are not arbitrary, but my significant opposites with whom I have established a connection inspire me to work with them. In my encounters with the stones and in my art, I respect my negatives in toto, so I never process stones and would never cut off an edge to alter the shape.
Rocks may fall outside our usual definition of living organisms, but when I think of the long time it takes for a stone to change from a massive boulder in the mountains to the size and shape it has as it rests in my palm, I feel the history of the earth that the stone has silently witnessed over the millennia, and I feel the story inside it. I feel the breath of life inside each stone, so sometimes I paint while I talk to the rock as I hold it in my hand.
06. Baby Seal
07. Pug Dog
08. Koala
09. Golden Retriever
10. Raccoon
I carefully bring out the living being I feel in the stone to its surface. And I consider step by step, for example, whether I am positioning the backbone in the right place. Does it feel right? Am I forcing something that disagrees with the natural shape of the stone? I tread carefully. I put my paintbrush to the rock when I genuinely feel it is the right brushstroke. In this sense, my painting is a dialogue with the stone. The stone determines what I paint on it, not me. The art I want to create is a life newly born in my hands through my dialogue with the stone. I want to paint the life, the living spirit of the being I feel inside the stone.
I paint the eyes at the very end, and I consider my work completed only when I see the eyes are alive and looking back at me. Completing a job is not about how much detail I draw but whether I feel the life in the stone.
11. Baby Owl
12. Snow Owl
13. Mom And Baby Elephant
14. Hippo
15. Lone Wolf
16. Young Lion
17. Japanese Chin Dog
18. Eagle Owl
19. Polar Bear
20. Green Iguana
21. Laying Himalayan Cat
22. Baby Red-Eared Slider
23. Wings Of Affection
24. Himalayan Cat
25. Dendrobates
26. Owl Friends
27. Long-Haired Tortoiseshell Cat
28. Tuxedo Cat
29. Leopard
30. Chinese Pond Turtle
31. Crocodile
32. Possum Family
33. Somali Cat
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