Painting

  • “Why Did I Paint That?”

    “There are reasons of the heart of which Reason knows nothing.” 

    — Pascal

    Why did I paint just that, just there, just then? I don’t know. (And the less representational a painting is, the less superficial the explanation for it.)

    There are reasons of the Soul of which my mind knows nothing.

  • “Jackson Pollock Dances”

    You might think that Jackson Pollock’s movements when flinging the paint would be awkward – even violent. But look at the films of him in action: he’s dancing! There is rhythm and flow; there is grace.

    My canvas is much, much smaller – no room for my body to dance – but when I look at

  • “Every Painting Is Alive!”

    Yes, I am pantheistic. Everything is Spirit – is its own unique individual manifestation of The Spirit. Everything is Alive! And the more we Know this Truth, the stronger can be our relationship with It.

    Every painting is Alive! Every painting projects, emanates, This into the space before it, into us in that space. And the

  • “Now I’m Painting as a Child Again”

    “The reason we find nothing to dislike in the drawings made by children is that in them the inherent nature of man finds expression without being thwarted or frustrated.”* That is to say, they are free to express their Muse, their Souls unrestrained.

     But then, “The moment children become self-conscious,

  • “An Homage to the Dot”

    Very many of my paintings contain a dot. Some more than one, but usually just the one – the One.

    The dot always comes first, placing itself seemingly as it desires. (Sometimes that’s all I do. It resonates by itself on the otherwise all-white expanse of canvas.) It is the dot that inspires all the

  • “The Star Was My Mother”

    When I was five, I was hospitalized with an illness from which it was thought I would die. (Thankfully, I was only told this many years later!) Every day as my mother turned to leave me she would start to cry, and so would I.

    But one day, at that very moment, I switched on the

  • “Three Chinese Gongshi”

    In the room where I paint there are three Chinese gongshi, scholars’ rocks, as a tribute and a remembrance to my Chinese painting guides, members of the literati, the scholar-painters. It is as if I am triangulated by the Energy emanating from the rocks, from them as the rocks.

    When I was

  • “Painting and Other Power”

    When I paint, I am somehow in an altered state of consciousness, surrendered to a Higher Power.

  • “Art as Meditation – The Stillpoint”

    The Stillpoint is the moment when you sit perfectly quietly having completed the drawing, the haiku drawing—at peace, in harmony, your life in perfect resolution.

  • Life Energy in Art: Six Articles on Art and Healing

    A series of original writings on different aspects of art for healing by Dr. Diamond.