The Myth of Passage
1/1

3024 x 4032

In the process of splashing viscous paint a window appears. A passage forms in the illusion of depth, a space to dive into and wander within. 

Some of the most beautiful images I see are in the transient and ephemeral moments of beauty that occur in the process of creating another work.

The ‘Aesthetica’ Collection captures, preserves and shares the aesthetic experience of painting that is usually intimately private. Through digital photography, these fleeting images of aesthetic delight become artworks in their own right. No IRL artefact exists outside of these works as they are destroyed as quickly as they are created, painted over in palimpsest, subsumed into another work or washed away. Through this collection, my audience are invited to share in the spontaneous visual pleasure found in the process of painting, which is perhaps for me, the greatest motivating aspect of artistic creation itself.


The Myth of Passage

Gina Choy

'The One and the Many'
1/1
5440 x 5440 px
4.3 MB

Professor Dong Ya’s review of Liminal Space (extract)

“Georgina’s series of works express the integration of time and space. It is difficult to draw great mountains and rivers with limited ink. Georgina’s painting strokes, in which ink and water are blended together, are vivid and lively, simultaneously dry and wet. Her ethereal and flowing compositions from the scatter perspective with the eye of her heart is the spirit of Chinese ink and water with the form of Western modern constructivism.

The internalised emotions of the human mind can interact with external objects and can be translated in the form of paintings through the externalisation of the human heart. The focus of her paintings lies in this philosophy, like that of the moon in the water and the image in the mirror. This is the sublime out of the painting, which is liminal.”

The One and the Many

Ài Huà (愛 畫) Collection explores the historical art of traditional Chinese figure painting by taking up the subject of the Chinese Courtesan. Sometimes misunderstood as prostitutes, Courtesans in ancient times were highly trained entertaining performers and masters of the arts. Often considered mental equals to aristocrats, scholars, government officials and all manner of high society Courtesans, gaining prominence in the literati arts, played a formative role in shaping cultural ideals and were affiliated with extraordinary beauty and taste.

The title of this body of work, Ài Huà (愛 畫) is a play on words. ‘Ai’ reflects the generative art technology used to draw out these artworks, but here it has dual meaning as in Chinese the character Ài 愛 means Love. Ài Huà (愛 畫) literally translates as "Love Painting" but can also suggest “a love of painting” or “paintings of love”.

Entertainer, muse, lover and political influencer, Ài Huà (愛 畫) brings to life the exquisite & fascinating world of the Chinese Courtesan and with it sumptuous fashion, rich culture, power, vulnerability & incredible beauty.

‘Xie Hua’ (写 畫) Collection
1/1

Through the process of deconstructing and recontextualising the ancient Chinese instructional text on technique and aesthetics, the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual, first published in 1679, I have invited AI invigorated responses creating artworks that illuminate, reanimate and imagine the past in a glorious homage to tradition and technological experimentation.

In China there is an historical kinship between writing (xie | 写) and painting (hua | 畫). Literati scholar-painters would describe the act of painting in terms of the verb to write, xie (写), or even praise good literati painting by calling it writing. This intersection is explored in ‘Xie Hua’ (写 畫) Collection with artworks written from imagination into reality through the conduit of AI.

The addition of my artist seal 蔡金娜 (Choy Gina) indicates authorship and enhances composition. While the DALL·E watermark is rotated vertically as a second seal to reflect the medium of AI.

Garden of the Far East

Green Dream

The INFINITY MATRIX are vast abstractions of nature, space, time and the cosmic realm referred to in Chinese Daoist philosophy as the Dao. They draw together modern abstraction with Chinese calligraphic strokes to create immersive spaces in which to mind wander within.

While traditional Chinese paintings commonly showed vast ethereal mountainous landscapes, I depart from the image of nature as object to depict the metaphysical realm - making visible the invisible Dao.

An INFINITY MATRIX is formed through an automative repetition of 5 hand painted calligraphic strokes. This rhythmic mark marking is approached as a form concentrated meditation, a technique influenced by Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhist painting philosophy.

These works act as a form of connection between artist, audience and the metaphysical realm. They celebrate the power of art and its capacity to enhance human experience and consciousness.

5000 x 3304 px
300 DPI

Green Dream

Yu Ming

Ensō

Professor Dong Ya’s review of Liminal Space (extract)
 
“Georgina’s series of works express the integration of time and space. It is difficult to draw great mountains and rivers with limited ink. Georgina’s painting strokes, in which ink and water are blended together, are vivid and lively, simultaneously dry and wet. Her ethereal and flowing compositions from the scatter perspective with the eye of her heart is the spirit of Chinese ink and water with the form of Western modern constructivism.
 
The internalised emotions of the human mind can interact with external objects and can be translated in the form of paintings through the externalisation of the human heart. The focus of her paintings lies in this philosophy, like that of the moon in the water and the image in the mirror. This is the sublime out of the painting, which is liminal.”
 
5440 x 5440 px
3.5MB

Ensō

‘Pulse-beat’ Collection  
A breath or a pulse-beat of the undefinable spirit of life.

“When painting follows the heart, the obstructing veils are removed, all the innumerable things of Heaven and Earth can be represented.” - Shih-t’ao (1642-1707) 

Painting with charcoal on ceramic informed by the technique and philosophy of traditional Chinese painting. Translated into digital through photography. Physical work - destroyed.

1/1  
Date: 2023  
Artist: Georgina Hooper  
3023 x 4032 px  
16.8MB  
12MP

Transformation

‘Xie Hua’ (写 畫) Collection
1/1

Through the process of deconstructing and recontextualising the ancient Chinese instructional text on technique and aesthetics, the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual, first published in 1679, I have invited AI invigorated responses creating artworks that illuminate, reanimate and imagine the past in a glorious homage to tradition and technological experimentation. 

In China there is an historical kinship between writing (xie | 写) and painting (hua | 畫). Literati scholar-painters would describe the act of painting in terms of the verb to write, xie (写), or even praise good literati painting by calling it writing. This intersection is explored in ‘Xie Hua’ (写 畫) Collection with artworks written from imagination into reality through the conduit of AI. 

The addition of my artist seal 蔡金娜 (Choy Gina) indicates authorship and enhances composition. While the DALL·E watermark is rotated vertically as a second seal to reflect the medium of AI.

Return of Spring

XIE HUA

Journey Through a Forest of Oak and Moss

The INFINITY MATRIX are vast abstractions of nature, space, time and the cosmic realm referred to in Chinese Daoist philosophy as the Dao. They draw together modern abstraction with Chinese calligraphic strokes to create immersive spaces in which to mind wander within.

While traditional Chinese paintings commonly showed vast ethereal mountainous landscapes, I depart from the image of nature as object to depict the metaphysical realm - making visible the invisible Dao.

An INFINITY MATRIX is formed through an automative repetition of 5 hand painted calligraphic strokes. This rhythmic mark marking is approached as a form concentrated meditation, a technique influenced by Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhist painting philosophy.

These works act as a form of connection between artist, audience and the metaphysical realm. They celebrate the power of art and its capacity to enhance human experience and consciousness.

∞ [ ]
12.3 MB
3853 x 3831

Journey Through a Forest of Oak and Moss

INFINITY MATRIX

Ai Hua  (愛 畫)

Liminal Space V2

Sudden Insight

PULSE-BEAT

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jpeg, 5535 x 5530 
INFINITY LANDSCAPES

The title of this artwork ‘Brushing Away the Clouds’ refers to the tradition of Chinese painting as a self-cultivating discipline capable of brushing away the clouds of a dualistically trained mind. The technique of this work drew from the traditional method of “splash ink, spare ink”. The vibrant blue colour field was spontaneously and lavishly applied while the overlaying calligraphic strokes were made to spare paint, often using the brush load to exhaustion. 

This work was hand painted on canvas 1.5m x 1.5m and translated to NFT with high resolution photography.


Brushing Away the Clouds

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jpeg, 5238 × 5242
240 pixels per inch
INFINITY LANDSCAPES

‘Dance of the Cherry Blossom’ is symbolic of the fleeting beauty and fragility of life. It is painted using a fusion of traditional Chinese painting technique and methodology with Western modernism. The reverberating red, a fortuitous colour in Chinese culture, pulses with invigorating energy. It’s strength contrasts the thousands of tiny calligraphic strokes that tremble with the heart/mind of the artist. This work was created as a form of concentrated meditation, in keeping with the philosophical influence of the Chan Buddhist tradition on Chinese painting. It is a symbolic reminder to savour the moment and to look for the simple and exquisite beauty surrounding us every day. 

This work was meticulously hand-painted on canvas (1m x 1m) and translated as NFT with high resolution photography.

Dance of the Cherry Blossom

INFINITY LANDSCAPES V2

The Ocean is a magic that I love deeply. I love living by it and its regulating and invigorating effect. It is nature at its most palpable. Vast·blue·beautiful·powerful·ever-changing. I was messaging a friend on one of my ocean walks, they were having a hard time, and I’d wished there was some way I could transport her, so she too could gaze out into that vast indigo sea with the salt air in her lungs. So I told my DALL·E all about the Big Blue, and its many ways of being. ‘INDIGO DAZE’ is a collection that brings my ocean to you. Love Georgina × DALL·E

Submerged

The Sublime

INDIGO DAZE

Petal Portal
1/1
3024 x 4032

An original test page overlaying in close up on the finished painted canvas.  Through the window into a window we glimpse inception. 

Some of the most beautiful images I see are in the transient and ephemeral moments of beauty that occur in the process of creating another work.

The ‘Aesthetica’ Collection captures, preserves and shares the aesthetic experience of painting that is usually intimately private. Through digital photography, these fleeting images of aesthetic delight become artworks in their own right. No IRL artefact exists outside of these works as they are destroyed as quickly as they are created, painted over in palimpsest, subsumed into another work or washed away. Through this collection, my audience are invited to share in the spontaneous visual pleasure found in the process of painting, which is perhaps for me, the greatest motivating aspect of artistic creation itself.

Petal Portal

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

1/1
3024 x 4032

Some of the most beautiful images I see are in the transient and ephemeral moments of beauty that occur in the process of creating another work. 

The ‘Aesthetica’ Collection captures, preserves and shares the aesthetic experience of painting that is usually intimately private. Through digital photography, these fleeting images of aesthetic delight become artworks in their own right. No IRL artefact exists outside of these works as they are destroyed as quickly as they are created, painted over in palimpsest, subsumed into another work or washed away. Through this collection, my audience are invited to share in the spontaneous visual pleasure found in the process of painting, which is perhaps for me, the greatest motivating aspect of artistic creation itself.


Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

AESTHETICA V2

A collection where we look up… I live in a place of vast, ever changing skies, expansive ocean and abundant bird life. It is a rich, shifting beauty of atmospheric space and calming nature that I have the privilege to see every day. This collection invites you to see the world through my eyes. “With no body worthy of offering, I long to present you the sky above. To hand over everything to you.” - Yumi Fuzuki · Love Georgina × DALL·E

White Cockatoos

A collection where we look up… “With no body worthy of offering, I long to present you the sky above. To hand over everything to you.” - Yumi Fuzuki · Love Georgina × DALL·E

Salty Haze

ZEPHYR

The wild and mystical mountainous terrain explored in my ‘Monumental’ Collection refers to a perception of nature as dignified authority or supreme power and reflects a deep reverence for the natural world. This ideal is embedded in the philosophy of traditional Chinese painting of which I am a scholar. In ancient Chinese painter-critic texts, and their tradition of Monumental Landscape painting, mountains were recognised as venerated ancients and wizened ancestors. Such artworks were created as visual spaces in which the viewer was transported into nature, where one could wander mentally. Mountains were associated with nurturing and reinvigorating the spirit. I've traveled the world hiking mountains and live at the foot of the wonderful Glasshouse Mountain Range. Inspired by the history of Chinese Monumental Landscape painting and my experiences in nature I've created spaces of cosmic visions for my audience to mind wander in. Love Georgina × DALL·E

Jade Dragon Mountain

The wild and mystical mountainous terrain explored in my ‘Monumental’ Collection refers to a perception of nature as dignified authority or supreme power and reflects a deep reverence for the natural world. This ideal is embedded in the philosophy of traditional Chinese painting of which I am a scholar. In ancient Chinese painter-critic texts, and their tradition of Monumental Landscape painting, mountains were recognised as venerated ancients and wizened ancestors. Such artworks were created as visual spaces in which the viewer was transported into nature, where one could wander mentally. Mountains were associated with nurturing and reinvigorating the spirit. In this body of work I offer a collection of ‘Monumental’ paintings, created in collaboration with AI through my own poetry of textual prompts, informed by my life experience of roaming, rock-climbing and hiking mountains of my homeland and those around the world, as well as the history of Chinese paintings that I have traversed in my mind. I invite my audience to wander a little in these cosmic visions of harmonious existence in a vast but orderly universe. Love Georgina × DALL·E

Sunlight Range

MONUMENTAL

Through the process of deconstructing and recontextualising the ancient Chinese instructional text on technique and aesthetics, the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual, first published in 1679, I have invited AI invigorated responses creating artworks that illuminate, reanimate and imagine the past, invariably yoking tradition with technological experimentation in search of beauty.

Harvest

In the tradition of Chinese painting, flowers were considered emissaries of beauty. The splendor of their myriad forms and colors thought to move the hearts of people. 

Through the process of deconstructing and recontextualising the ancient Chinese instructional text on technique and aesthetics, the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual, first published in 1679, I have invited AI invigorated responses creating artworks that illuminate, reanimate and imagine the past, invariably yolking tradition with technological experimentation in search of beauty.

Perfect Pleasure

Emissaries of Beauty

'OCTOPUSSY' is my creative response to the rising power of the feminine that I feel within myself and the world around me. At this time in history I sense the blooming of a geography of thought that embraces the intuitive, aesthetic and natural forces around and within us.  
The Octopus is a creature I associate with the sacred feminine - powerful, mysterious, sensual and intelligent. Working with this potent symbol, and a fusion of the written word with AI and digital painting tools, I've created artworks that celebrate the power of the divine feminine and the ecosystems that foster this internal force within us all.

Hera's Orchard

‘OCTOPUSSY’ is a creative response to the rising power of the feminine that I feel within myself and the world around me. At this time in history I sense the blooming of a geography of thought that embraces the intuitive, aesthetic and natural forces around and within us.  
The Octopus is a creature I associate with the sacred feminine - powerful, mysterious, sensual and intelligent. Working with this potent symbol, and a fusion of the written word with AI and digital painting tools, I've created artworks that celebrate the power of the divine feminine and the ecosystems that foster this internal force within us all.

Mother

OCTOPUSSY

‘OCTOPUSSY’, a collection of 13 unique artworks, is a creative response to the rising power of the feminine that I feel within myself and the world around me. At this time in history I sense the blooming of a geography of thought that embraces the intuitive, aesthetic and natural forces around and within us.  

The Octopus is a creature I associate with the sacred feminine - powerful, mysterious, sensual and intelligent. Working with this potent symbol, and a fusion of the written word with AI and digital painting tools, I've created artworks that celebrate the power of the divine feminine and the ecosystems that foster this internal force within us all.

OCTOPUSSY 2023 #4/15

OCTOPUSSY 2023 #10/15

COLLECTION POSTERS

'Ovid's Metamorphoses' references a Greek myth, the story of Pygmalion and Galatea, and the moment when the goddess of love brings a sculpture to life. 

In this work I imagine Brâncuși's golden ‘Bird in Space’ (L'Oiseau dans l'espace) coming to life and taking flight.

Ovid's Metamorphoses

In China there is an historical kinship between writing (xie | 寫) and painting (hua | 畫). Literati scholar-painters would describe the act of painting in terms of the verb to write, xie (寫), or even praise good literati painting by calling it writing. This intersection between writing and painting, history and the contemporary is explored through the process of writing artworks from imagination into reality through the conduit of AI. 

In the tradition of Feng Shui the fish is symbolic of prosperity, an auspicious symbol of good fortune. 'Lotus Pond' evokes the sense of peace and tranquility one can experience in the sensory immersion of watching fish swim in a pond. In my scholarly research I have come to understand cultivating a state of tranquility is a powerful practice for elevation of self and a state of being for a prosperous life.

Lotus Pond

OUTILER

China has a long tradition of philosophical inquiry concerned with the ultimate nature of reality—its being, origins, components, ways of changing. 

The title of the work refers to the second chapter of the seminal treatise by Zhuangzi, (Chuang-tzu 莊子 “Master Zhuang” late 4th century BC) that philosophize subjective individuality, the subjective and objective and the center where all distinctions are merged in One. 

Zhuangzi, writes "Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon us by turns, with ever-changing mood. They come like music from hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Daily and nightly they alternate within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring... But for these emotions I should not be. But for me, they would have no scope." 

Created for the AI Surrealism exhibition at Oculus NYC, hosted by Superchief Gallery NFT and Exquisite Workers. The largest AI art show to date, featuring 100 AI artists, June 2-8, 2023. Curated by Anna Dart and Roger Haus.

The Identity of Contraries

I have lost myself in a dream and in doing so found The Way. 

Zhuangzi, (Chuang-tzu 莊子 “Master Zhuang” late 4th century BC) was a philosopher in ancient China, who, one night went to sleep and dreamed that he was a butterfly. He dreamt that he was flying around from flower to flower and while he was dreaming he felt free, blown about by the breeze hither and thither. He was quite sure that he was a butterfly. But when he awoke he realised that he had just been dreaming, and that he was really Chuang Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly. But then Chuang Tzu asked himself the following question: "was I Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly or am I now really a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu?"

Created for the AI Surrealism exhibition at Oculus NYC, hosted by Superchief Gallery NFT and Exquisite Workers. The largest AI art show to date, featuring 100 AI artists, June 2-8, 2023. Curated by Anna Dart and Roger Haus.

A Dream of the Self

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'Microcosm’, created with ink and watercolour on rice paper, is inspired by the biodiversity of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure on earth where some 1625 species of fish swim among more than 450 species of hard coral. Its 2,500 individual reefs and 900 islands extend from the northern tip of Queensland down to south of Gladstone. I was born in North Queensland and in my youth had the privilege to snorkel the reef, exploring the vast world of the sea in awe of its wonder. 'Microcosm' is painted on rice paper (130cm x 65cm) using traditional Chinese painting practices which I was taught as a research scholar under the instruction of Professor Dong Ya at Tianjin University, China.  In this work I translate the vast natural territory of the reef most familiar to me with traditional Chinese aesthetics and methodology. The traditional Chinese technique coalesced beautifully with this Australian subject matter. As is typical for the tradition, the landscape is depicted in multiple perspectives, therefore can be viewed and displayed in either landscape or portrait format as a work with which to mind wander in, without a beginning or end. The physical painting was exhibited in Brisbane in my 2018 solo exhibition as the hero piece and was acquired by paper and Asian painting conservator Jennifer Loubser. This artwork was also translated into textiles by Japanese-Australian fashion designer Masayo Yasuki for her fashion label DOGSTAR. The work was translated into high resolution photography by photographer Dr Carl Warner. Now minted as an NFT, despite the delicateness of rice paper and its ephemeral nature, this painting will endure beyond its physical existence in all of its original character. 'Microcosm' was curated in the digital exhibition 'Reconciliation with the Living' by Museum Week in partnership with NFT Biennial in support of UNESCO, displayed at Arroz Estúdios, Lisbon during NFC 2023, June7-8.

Microcosm

INK ON PAPER

“Shen 神(spirit) is formless but resides in form, and Li 天理 (its organising principle) participates in all matter and substance, and their reflections.⁠” Tsung Ping (375-444 CE)

‘ONENESS II’ was painted during the final year my of PhD research in which I have explored the art and neuroscience of traditional Chinese painting. Chinese painting is an ancient (and continuing) artistic practice steeped in Buddhism, Confucianism and Daosim. Within these philosophies of thought is the concept of Oneness, of which I seek to understand and convey in this Collection.  

A state of Oneness can be expressed as the perpetual realisation that we are not separate from the world around us. Through the abstraction of form, using a repetitive, meditative practice of Chinese calligraphic strokes, I give voice to the permeability and reciprocity of our nature. We are solid yet also receptive beings of matter and energy, in a constant state of flux and sympathetic resonance with our surroundings.

While we have much in common with the physical world, and this is expressed in physiognomy of painting in the Chinese tradition, where cavernous rocks are like yawning mouths and oceans are hungry dogs, this collection goes beyond simile and metaphor to delve into the depths of how we are one and the same with the world around us from the perspective of our energetic states. 

The practice of the discipline of traditional Chinese painting is one of surrender to its processes and methodologies, and an acknowledgement that understanding of its outcomes can’t be cognised. I have found that in the walking of this path, defined by consistency of practice, and the distillation of small accumulated efforts over time, there are fields of discovery that unfurl themselves. 

The physical work, an acrylic painting on canvas measuring 152.5cm x 183cm (60” x 72”), took 3 months to paint and was digitised in high resolution by photographer Louis Lim. 

ONENESS II

“Shen 神 (spirit) is formless but resides in form, and Li 天理 (its organising principle) participates in all matter and substance, and their reflections.⁠” Tsung Ping (375-444 CE)

‘ONENESS I’ was painted during the final year my of PhD research in which I have explored the art and neuroscience of traditional Chinese painting. Chinese painting is an ancient (and continuing) artistic practice steeped in Buddhism, Confucianism and Daosim. Within these philosophies of thought is the concept of Oneness, of which I seek to understand and convey in this Collection.  

A state of Oneness can be expressed as the perpetual realisation that we are not separate from the world around us. Through the abstraction of form, using a repetitive, meditative practice of Chinese calligraphic strokes, I give voice to the permeability and reciprocity of our nature. We are solid yet also receptive beings of matter and energy, in a constant state of flux and sympathetic resonance with our surroundings.

While we have much in common with the physical world, and this is expressed in physiognomy of painting in the Chinese tradition, where cavernous rocks are like yawning mouths and oceans are hungry dogs, this collection goes beyond simile and metaphor to delve into the depths of how we are one and the same with the world around us from the perspective of our energetic states. 

The practice of the discipline of traditional Chinese painting is one of surrender to its processes and methodologies, and an acknowledgement that understanding of its outcomes can’t be cognised. I have found that in the walking of this path, defined by consistency of practice, and the distillation of small accumulated efforts over time, there are fields of discovery that unfurl themselves. 

The physical work, an acrylic painting on canvas measuring 152.5cm x 183cm (60” x 72”), took 3 months to paint and was digitised in high resolution by photographer Louis Lim.

ONENESS I

ONENESS

I grew up on the Great Barrier Reef wandering in rock pools, collecting shells on island beaches and diving in a crystal clear ocean alive with underwater gardens. Inspired by these coral microcosms, this collection reflects the indelible mark making of traditional Chinese painting. Created in collaboration with AI using purely textual prompts formed through a process of deconstructing and recontextualising an ancient Chinese instructional text on painting intertwined with my poetry of personal somatic and visual memory.

Sublime Subtly

Fertile Current

REEF

"There is no nature at an instant. Let us grant that the pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit, a refuge from the goading urgency of contingent happenings." Quoted in N Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims (Raleigh N C 1988).

Art, like Mathematics is a language that we can  seek to understand the divine.  

When we think of our creative outputs as coming from not within us but from some unimaginable source, to be passed along, artists become conduits, glimpsing wonderment, sensitively tuning into the whispers of the world and its divine and ancient echoes that reverberate timelessly.

Inspiration comes illusive and tantalising, we glean it with our peripherals and express it through our own unique xin (heart-mind). 

Oil on canvas (1998)

Divine Fractions I

The Ensō, a traditional East Asian ink on paper discipline, is defined by its free-flowing form. The artist practices to draw the circle in a single, unbroken movement. This requires the cultivation of a particular state of mind and body - where one moves and acts without hesitation or cogitation.

In this artwork the depth of field is explored and expanded through a low relief of calligraphic strokes overlayed in a palimpsest of erasing and over-writing. Here the metaphor of a continual cycle of coming and going is suggested. This symbolically reflects both the philosophy of the Ensō as an unending circle and the nature of energy and matter as a constantly dynamic and fluctuating state.

As a result of this technique the algorithmically drawn field of calligraphy, that is drawn, hidden and once again revealed, oscillates between foreground and background, suggesting the invisible and intangible ether of Qi (energy) around us and within us.

This work has been documented in high resolution by Dr Carl Warner. 

Ensō 一

SuperRare

'Oneness Sketch' is a digital sketch I made for my painting "ONENESS I' using Procreate. In the making of this work I tested an idea that would be later brought to fruition as a large-scale physical painting, thereby making it something of a blue-print. This short film is also a unique artwork in itself. It provides an insight into my artistic process, inviting the audience into the artist's perspective. They experience, through the artist's viewpoint, what it might be like to paint the many thousand strokes of one of my large-scale paintings while also providing a sense of the time my process takes. To sit and watch the film from its start to completion becomes an experience of focused meditation, a small rest for the mind and body as one pauses to watch the work endlessly revealed and restarted.

Oneness Sketch

BLUEPRINT

'Sacred River'

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan  
A stately pleasure-dome decree:  
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran  
Through caverns measureless to man  
Down to a sunless sea.  
So twice five miles of fertile ground  
With walls and towers were girdled round;  
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,  
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;  
And here were forests ancient as the hills,  
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

ABSTRACT NOUNS  
An abstract noun is a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object.

Art and the medium of AI is used here as a means of exploring less concrete concepts found within the human condition and experience.

This work explores the medium of machine thinking and its penchant for abstraction and the absurd as a complimentary vehicle for the expression of abstract thinking and philosophy.

In this collection the continued influence of traditional Chinese ink on paper painting is reflected in indelible mark making and compositional elements of form and space.

Sacred River

'心 (Xin) Reservoir'  
There is space enough for the heart and mind.

ABSTRACT NOUNS  
An abstract noun is a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object. 

Art and the medium of AI is used here as a means of exploring less concrete concepts found within the human condition and experience. 

This work explores the medium of machine thinking and its penchant for abstraction and the absurd as a complimentary vehicle for the expression of abstract thinking and philosophy.

In this collection the continued influence of traditional Chinese ink on paper painting is reflected in indelible mark making and compositional elements of form and space.

心 Reservoir

ABSTRACT NOUNS

Liminal Space II  
"Art is a vehicle to express the intangible, making visible the invisible energies around and within us." - Gina Choy

Created by wielding traditional Chinese painting techniques and philosophy through a Western medium, this collection draws together the artist’s academic training of both historical fine art traditions. 

Painted with oils on exquisitely woven & twice sized Belgium linen this body of work completes the 'Liminal Space' series. The prelude to this work was painted in ink and pigment on rice paper and was something of a study for this collection.

In this subsequent collection, each work reflects the aesthetics of meticulous calligraphic mark making and the gestural movements of intuitive responses characteristic of the tradition of Chinese painting. They also lean into an abstraction of form to express an ephemeral experience of the natural world.

Applying an Eastern methodology to Western materials brought a somatic savouring to the process, creating a deep state of flow. Therefore, these images are artefacts of the sublime experience of painting as meditation as well as a reflection of the aesthetic beauty of nature.

This important body of work was celebrated in a solo exhibition at OneSpace Gallery in Brisbane, Australia (2017) and warmly reviewed by Professor Dong Ya, Head of the School of Art and Architecture at Tianjin University, China. This collection was also published in an article by the TAASA Review (VOL 28, No.4).  

Majority of these paintings were destroyed by flood in 2020, a few were reluctantly painted over to make way for new artworks. Of the remaining two physicals in this artist's possession, one will be gifted to the patron of its NFT counterpart (to be revealed to the collector after it’s acquisition).

Lorentz Force

Quantum

LIMINAL SPACE II

“Shen 神(spirit) is formless but resides in form, and Li 天理 (its organising principle) participates in all matter and substance, and their reflections.⁠” Tsung Ping (375-444 CE)

‘ONENESS III’ was painted during the final year my of PhD research, an exploration of the art and neuroscience of traditional Chinese painting. Chinese painting is an ancient (and continuing) artistic practice steeped in Buddhism, Confucianism and Daosim. Within these philosophies of thought is the concept of Oneness.

A state of Oneness can be expressed as the perpetual realisation that we are not separate from the world around us. Through the abstraction of form, using a repetitive, meditative practice of Chinese calligraphic strokes, I give voice to the permeability and reciprocity of our nature. We are solid yet also receptive beings of matter and energy, in a constant state of flux and sympathetic resonance with our surroundings.

While we have much in common with the physical world, and this is expressed in physiognomy of painting in the Chinese tradition, where cavernous rocks are like yawning mouths and oceans are hungry dogs, this collection goes beyond simile and metaphor to delve into the depths of how we are one and the same with the world around us from the perspective of our energetic states. Our nature can be expressed and found in the abstract. 

The practice of the discipline of traditional Chinese painting is one of surrender to its processes and methodologies, and an acknowledgement that understanding of its outcomes can’t be cognised. I have found that in the walking of this path, defined by consistency of practice, and the distillation of small accumulated efforts over time, there are fields of discovery that unfurl themselves.

The physical work, an acrylic painting on canvas measuring 152.5cm x 183cm (60” x 72”), took 3 months to paint and was digitalized in high resolution by Australian art photographer Louis Lim.

The work was inspired by a moment of mediation many years before in which I became aware of the capacity of the human ‘instrument’ to feel and experience ch'i.

ONENESS III

Sum of the Parts

'Serene Song'  
Xiě Dòng Huà 寫動畫  
(Writing Animation)

A collection of fleeting moments that capture attention and encourage a small adjustment of the xin 心 (heart/mind).


Wonder, beauty, nature… Neuroscience has identified childhood as a period of great cognitive growth and fecundity. Neuroplasticity is understood to be at its highest potential in this critical period of growth. Researchers have recently discovered a correlation between wonder (that childlike sense of awe and delight) and rich aesthetic experiences with a renewal of critical periods and cognitive development and repair. 

I seek to make art that evokes wonder through the beauty of nature, creating work that can be positively impactful on the cognitive and physiological health of my audience. Neuroscientific research points us to the importance and value of nature as a source of well-being.  It turns out, the regulating benefits of the natural world can extend to visual depictions of it as well as our in-real life experiences. 

Through these animations of imagined landscapes, I draw audiences into moments of peace and wonder, much in the same way traditional Chinese painters did with their ink on rice paper landscapes. Since my first AI body of work ‘Xie Hua’ (写 畫), I’ve been looking forward to returning to the traditional subject of Chinese landscape painting through the novel medium of AI. 

My textual prompts continue to be a deconstruction and re-contextualisation of the ancient Chinese instructional text on technique and aesthetics, the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual, first published in 1679. These AI invigorated responses result in artworks that illuminate, reanimate and imagine the past in glorious homage to tradition and technological experimentation. Now, using @Runwayml I have further extended this creative trajectory into animation, bringing these newly sprung gardens to life. 

Closely referencing Chinese art history, I include my own signature seal, but each animation is also embedded with a colour matched DALL·E watermark rotated vertically as a second seal to reflect the genre of AI and add transparency of the medium.

Even with our machine-generated art, we whisper homage to the natural world, to the truth of its significance for us, of 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 as Source. I create like a prayer for its preservation, not merely as a catalogue of our memories in its absence. I draw from the collective memory of our shared human experience and reverence for nature. I hope the work will not be a requiem for its disappearing state, but rather, a voice for its survival.

Serene Song

Blue Tranquility  
Xiě Dòng Huà 寫動畫  
(Writing Animation)

A collection of fleeting moments that capture attention and encourage a small adjustment of the xin 心 (heart/mind).


Wonder, beauty, nature… Neuroscience has identified childhood as a period of great cognitive growth and fecundity. Neuroplasticity is understood to be at its highest potential in this critical period of growth. Researchers have recently discovered a correlation between wonder (that childlike sense of awe and delight) and rich aesthetic experiences with a renewal of critical periods and cognitive development and repair. 

I seek to make art that evokes wonder through the beauty of nature, creating work that can be positively impactful on the cognitive and physiological health of my audience. Neuroscientific research points us to the importance and value of nature as a source of well-being.  It turns out, the regulating benefits of the natural world can extend to visual depictions of it as well as our in-real life experiences. 

Through these animations of imagined landscapes, I draw audiences into moments of peace and wonder, much in the same way traditional Chinese painters did with their ink on rice paper landscapes. Since my first AI body of work ‘Xie Hua’ (写 畫), I’ve been looking forward to returning to the traditional subject of Chinese landscape painting through the novel medium of AI. 

My textual prompts continue to be a deconstruction and re-contextualisation of the ancient Chinese instructional text on technique and aesthetics, the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual, first published in 1679. These AI invigorated responses result in artworks that illuminate, reanimate and imagine the past in glorious homage to tradition and technological experimentation. Now, using @Runwayml I have further extended this creative trajectory into animation, bringing these newly sprung gardens to life. 

Closely referencing Chinese art history, I include my own signature seal, but each animation is also embedded with a colour matched DALL·E watermark rotated vertically as a second seal to reflect the genre of AI and add transparency of the medium.

Even with our machine-generated art, we whisper homage to the natural world, to the truth of its significance for us, of 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 as Source. I create like a prayer for its preservation, not merely as a catalogue of our memories in its absence. I draw from the collective memory of our shared human experience and reverence for nature. I hope the work will not be a requiem for its disappearing state, but rather, a voice for its survival.

Blue Tranquility

Xiě Dòng Huà 寫動畫

“The intellect seeking after an integrated theory cannot rest content with the assumption that there exist two distinct fields totally independent of each other by their nature” Einstein 1923.

This artwork represents a convergence of two fundamental aspects of our world - matter and energy. Matter being the observable physicality of nature as we perceive it through the sense of vision and energy being of a more metaphysical and less tangible reality (relating to Qi). Energy and matter are one and the same thing. This work simultaneously reflects a convergence of two of my creative trajectories - figuration and abstraction. 

This feels like a moment when two curvilinear lines cross or when two opposing ends of a circle meet. Through Convergence (2024) I explore the meeting of physical and virtual as a creative, practical, and philosophical conceptualisation. 

Recognising in all this - 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 as Source.

Convergence

Through Hummingbird I seek to make visible the invisible energies around us. In this work I present a vision of the natural world in which the union of both fields of energy and matter are imagined and illuminated.

Hummingbird explores a technical convergence of physical painting with computational methodolgy. I have employed AI as a tool of extension, where my traditional paintings are visually fused and animated. In this work, my hand-painted watercolour of a hummingbird is brought to life within the colour fields of the meticulously painted calligraphic strokes of my Infinity Matrix.

Hummingbird

FIELDS

Meditations on the very small to conceive of the infinite.

𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 as Source

The technique of this work drew from the traditional method of “splash ink, spare ink”. The vibrant blue colour field was spontaneously and lavishly applied while the overlaying calligraphic strokes are meditatively and meticulously applied to spare paint, often using the brush load to exhaustion.

(High resolution file available on request)

Koan 一

KOAN

"Blue Cascade" (2025) is a dance between form and formlessness, energy and matter, landscape and abstraction.

Through the dissolving or dissolution of form, and its reconfiguration through thousands of individual hand-painted calligraphic strokes, a sense of reality shifts, inviting an alternative perspective. This expanded view of nature encourages audiences to move beyond the "real" and the "perceived," engaging with formal elements that reveal cosmic principles that may only exist at the peripherals of the mind.

"Blue Cascade" employs the two foundational characteristics associated with traditional Chinese painting - ink wash and calligraphic strokes. In this particular iteration the rule “splash ink, spare ink” embraces tension between chance and intention. This directive “splash ink, spare ink” can be traced back to writings from Ming dynasty painter, calligrapher, connoisseur and art theorist, Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636).  

“Splash ink” is employed to the first layer – a vibrant colour field applied liberally and gesturally. The colour field reflects the systematic brushstrokes in traditional Chinese calligraphy however scale invites greater corporality to the process. The prodigious size of the canvas (6x 5 ft) transforms these strokes to embodied gestures, repeated systematically, emulating the downward cascade of water falling in great volume. Properties of water are further echoed in the fluidity of the paint and its generous application, which streams with a tangible gravity that pulls mass along with force and movement. 

Conversely, the overlaying white calligraphic strokes adhere to the rule of “spare ink”, with each brush load often used to its exhaustion. The effect provides a tonal variance, adding to the sensibly of light dancing on water. The monumentality in the expanse of colour is juxtaposed by the delicate nature of the thousands of tiny calligraphic strokes. They sparkle, jewel-like, along the emergent linear formations of colour beneath.  This overlaying matrix is formed from an automated repetition of 5 Chinese calligraphic strokes also applied in a downward direction like the script of illegible poetry. The strokes are formed from China’s ancient and indigenous observation of nature and reflect the primordial algorithm of the natural world. They are traditionally understood as capable of expressing all things in the nature and more broadly, when wielded with the ancient method of Chinese painting and its underpinning philosophy, they form the language for expressing 天理 li (cosmic truth). 

Rather than focusing on literal translation of form, I focus on the structure or systems that form the artwork. There is a collaborative element that exists with the technology of my materials, the methodologies employed in painting and the desire to translate unique and personal human experiences into a visual form. The process of creation becomes less about my own sense of knowing and more about how the artwork reveals “truth”, shifting how reality itself is perceived. This dialogue with the physical and metaphysical, transforms material and gesture into a new vocabulary of meaning and for translating human experience and expanding perception. Through the act of my creation, the invisible is made visible and the intangible, tangible.

Digitalised and Intertwined Blockchain Provenance
Contemporary science and technology can enrich and augment ancient and established foundations. Digitalising and minting Blue Cascade on the Ethereum Blockchain enables a deepened provenance that is akin to the provenance of collector seals and colophons in the Chinese painting tradition.

Signature seals and collector colophons are an integral aspect of traditional Chinese painting. A seals or chop: a small stone carved signature seal of the artist or collectors name form an essential compositional element but are also ink imprinted as an authentication for documents, paintings and calligraphy. Today it is uncommon for a collector to physically alter an artwork from their collection. 

Inviting Collector Colophons 
This ancient form of authentication and provenance is echoed in the employment of contemporary Blockchain provenance, with which this digital artifact is inscribed. The signature seal acknowledges the Chinese tradition in which my creative work is steeped, while Blockchain technology further fortifies my creative outputs. Two modalities juxtapose in their writing of provenance – one historic and the other cutting edge - one hand painted and the other digitally etched. Together they intersect to enrich and reflect my artwork’s multi-temporal nature.

Physical painting: acrylic on canvas
72” x 60” (182.88cm x 152.4cm)

Blue Cascade

In his seminal body of work, Homage to the Square, Josef Albers investigates the interplay of opacity and transparency, using layered squares and colours to create optical illusions and challenge our perception. Inspired by Albers' inquiry, my painting, Violent Delights, deepens this iterative exploration by reimagining the nature of colour—not as static, solid matter but as dynamic particles of light. Within this work, and my wider practice, creative process is embraced as a method of research.

This project presented an opportunity to consider the nature of colour as light through the primary visual language of my practice: the two foundational elements of traditional Chinese painting—ink wash (as colour field) and calligraphic strokes. These ancient techniques, rooted in the observation of nature, are here reframed within the Modernist structure of the square as a deliberate homage to Albers' format.

Violent Delights is a hand-painted work on a 24 x 24-inch (60 x 60 cm) canvas. It explores the layered interaction of traditional Chinese calligraphic strokes in vibrant red over a blue colour field, creating dynamic variations in opacity and density. Through this process I fracture the overlaying red colour field to change the opacity. With the compression of the strokes I exploring their range of density and transparency through different layering combinations. In research the outcomes can be surprising. These strokes and their variant interface came to reveal notions of force, velocity, speed and surface. Framed within the grounding structure of the square the red strokes are parallel to the blue surface leaving it undisturbed.

The strokes fracture and transform the cool surface, with their compression and layering altering the visual weight of the colour field. This interaction of force, velocity, and surface creates a tension between the structured strokes and the undisturbed blue background, generating a sense of both energy and restraint.

Through this process, the painting conveys an instinctive understanding of light as particles—an invisible energy that is conceived through the visual using the primordial algorithm of Chinese calligraphies. My sense of colour and energy aligns with Isaac Newton's particle theory of light, articulated in his 1704 treatise Opticks. While contemporary science primarily understands light as a wave, it is also recognized as discrete particles of energy called photons. 
In Violent Delights, I aim to conceive not only the optical experience of light and colour but also a deeper resonance with the forces that underpin our perception of the natural world. This work continues my exploration of how ancient methods can intersect with contemporary ideas, transforming both in the process.

Gina Choy (GinaChoy)

Gina Choy (GinaChoy)

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