Where Being Rises from the Edge of Nothing
When I stand before a canvas, I am not always trying to paint “something.” More often, I am waiting for something to emerge from what seems to be nothing.
The white surface is not mere emptiness. It is potential without form, a kind of silence. Today, I would like to reflect on the fragile space between being and nothingness.
Is Nothing Truly Empty?
We tend to imagine “nothing” as blank and hollow. Yet in the studio, nothing never feels vacant.
Light already falls upon the canvas. Air touches it. My breathing echoes against it. Before any visible mark appears, countless presences are already there.
I often begin with music — Bach unfolding slowly, or a quiet jazz piano. As sound fills the room, the white surface is no longer silent.
Perhaps nothingness is not absence, but a state before fullness. Since I began to see it this way, I no longer fear the white.
Being as a Gentle Tremor
With a single stroke, something begins to exist. Yet this existence is fragile.
The next layer may conceal it, a cloth may erase it, a wash of color may dissolve it into air.
I am drawn not to firm outlines, but to fading traces — where the will to remain and the quiet return to nothing coexist.
Abstract painting is less about depicting things, and more about sensing the condition of being.
Erasing Is Also a Form of Painting
I often wipe the surface during the process. Layers are scraped away, leaving only subtle remnants.
The canvas seems to return to nothing — yet it never becomes pure blankness again. What once existed lingers softly beneath.
In this, I find a quiet reassurance. Being never vanishes completely. And nothingness is not a devouring void.
Our memories are perhaps the same. What we believe erased may resurface in a different light.
Standing at the Threshold
Completion is not fullness. It is the gentle decision to stop.
One more stroke may strengthen presence — but it may also diminish the breathing space of nothing.
Being and nothing do not oppose each other. They illuminate one another.
If you are about to begin something new, do not fear the blankness before you. It holds quiet abundance.
My paintings continue to tremble at this threshold — between what appears, and what quietly recedes.