John L. Hart, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of SpiritBearArtFarm, a Canadian artist and writers retreat on the West coast of Vancouver Island. He currently lives in British Columbia half the year, and spends half a year living on South Kohala coast of Hawaii. He has been a practicing psychotherapist for over 40 years and is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Victoria. For nearly ten years he has been studying with the distinguished John Nip in the tradition of Chinese Brush Painting. He is a member of The Studio for Perseverance in Study of Calligraphy and Art and The Studio of Harmonious Endeavors.

Artist Statement: I consider my work to be in the tradition of an ancient contemplative art. The practice and creation of these works are a kind of meditation and are a connection to the mysterious and the sublime. The works can be objects of art as well as personal objects of contemplation. I have taught and practiced psychotherapy for many years in the mytho-poetic tradition and am profoundly inspired by the beauty of Vancouver Island and the Big Island of Hawaii.

Chinese Brush Painting

Chinese Brush Painting is an ancient contemplative art that has developed continuously over a period of six thousand years. The work in this gallery is done in the traditional manner on various kinds of paper with mostly mineral based water colors and ink. Looking closely, you can see bits of grass or other raw materials of the paper making process. This kind of art differs from the Western tradition in that the objects or subjects of the painting are not necessarily “real” but are suggestive or evocative of something beyond what your eye perceives. A master painting reveals the “spirit” of the subject. You, in a sense, are “completing” and finishing the details from your own minds eye. The paintings are truly an interactive medium.

Chinese masters were not only gifted artists but also accomplished calligraphers and revered poets. The paintings you see in museums or exhibits are in a deeper sense more than the sum of the parts of the painting, the calligraphy and the poem. Artists traditionally study under a master teacher for many years and the techniques as well as the awareness of “the way” of the art are then passed down generation to generation

The creation of the painting itself is a form of meditation and each painting can be considered an object of beauty as well as a focus point for meditation, imagination or relaxation.