The Buddha's teaching speaks of eighty-four thousand dharma gates, and a practitioner will choose the one gate that resonates most deeply with their own mindstream, the one with which they share the strongest affinity, and enter deeply through that single gate. I believe painting is no different. Some are suited to colors bright and intense; others to colors subtle and restrained. Some wield the straight line with mastery; others love the curve… Finding the painterly language that suits you is both the journey and the destination. Khenpo Sodargye once said: a house has doors on all four sides — simply enter through the door nearest you; there is no need to walk all the way around to someone else's door.
This summer I spent twenty days painting in Mount Wutai and Youyu with several classmates from the "Harmony in Diversity" workshop. I had brought twelve 120 × 80 cm frames, and by the end of the trip I had finished exactly twelve — the fewest paintings I have ever made on a plein-air trip, and the one from which I took away the most. I was no longer in such a hurry. On arriving somewhere, I would first walk around and think; when painting, if one day was not enough I took two, working until I myself was satisfied.
In Mount Wutai I mainly painted Nanshan Temple and the village scenery beyond Rizhao Temple. It was at Nanshan Temple that I felt the most: stone lions, weathered by the vicissitudes of time yet standing firm and unmoved; temple eaves layered upon layered eaves; mottled stone walls; monks walking slowly among the tourists — a scene in which history and modernity are fused together, in which faith is drowned out by sightseeing. The only colors I could think of then were burnt umber, red ochre, yellow ochre, Payne's grey, and titanium white. I tried painting the stone lions in acrylic, which dries quickly and allows many layers to be built up in a short time; with each added layer the color grew richer and more subtle — a fitting expression of my state of mind at the time. In the same manner I went on to paint the temple's stone walls and the ancient Great Wall at Youyu. Near the end of the trip I sent the works to my teacher Wang Hui to ask for his guidance, and his encouragement left me deeply heartened.
Painting is only a pretext; finding the pretext through which you yourself can speak should be a matter of water flowing into its channel — it cannot be hurried. Guided by Teacher Wang, I will press onward, seeking the door that belongs to me.
— Sheng Hui, Youyu, August 2018
Related: Selected works
