Artist Statement of “Purity”

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This image is part of the “Ch’an Mind, Zen Mind” series.

 

Compared to other images in the Ch’an Mind, Zen Mind series, Purity has less symbolic meaning, but more sensuous and emotional inspiration. The calmness and serenity of this image is rooted in memories of my pilgrimage to Buddhist temples.

The direct inspiration was the main hall of a Buddhist temple. The inside of the hall was dark and spacious, with a high ceiling. The only light emanated from the gate, and a few red candles burning on the sacrificial altar. Facing the huge Buddha statues sitting in the symbolic lotus, I knelt and did kowtows, completely in Buddha’s hands. Time passed in a silence tinged with monks’ chanting and the faraway sound of a bell.

In this image, my choice of a Chinese painting of the lotus, abstract brush works of sitting figures, and the use of colors was intuitive. I simply try to capture what I sense and feel at that moment.

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Biography

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Born in China, Jing Zhou is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and professor in USA. Her work has been shown and collected internationally including: Triennale Design Museum, Milan; Asian Cultural Center, Manhattan; British Computer Society, London; SIGGRAPH Art Gallery; ISEA; CAA; Les Abattoirs Museum, France; Mons Memorial Museum, Belgium; Royal Institution of Australia; Danish Poster Museum; GAMeC Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery, Italy; Athens Digital Art Festival, Greece; Taksim Republic Art Gallery, Istanbul; FILE, Sao Paulo; Korea Visual Information Design Assn.; Goethe Institute Alexandria, Egypt; Hungarian Electrographic Art Assn., Budapest; Stanford University; public collection of the WRO Media Art Center, Poland; Waikato Museum, New Zealand; Moravian Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic; SDAI Museum of the Living Artist, San Diego; and Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. Jing is also a Gold Medal recipient of the Art Directors Club of New Jersey, Gold Winner of the American Design Awards, Silver Winner of the Summit International Creative Awards, and Prize Winner of IFUW Poster Competition in Geneva.