Gallery #5

ZEN INFLUENCE ON WEST COAST AMERICANS

Tobey and Graves started under the influence of Zen in the 1930s in Seattle. By the 1950s the San Francisco Bay Area had become the center of Zen influence on the West Coast and still is.

  • Tobey
  • Graves
  • Francis
  • Reps
  • Hasagawa
  • Onslow Ford
  • Ferlinghetti
  • Monroe
  • DeFeo
  • Cage
  • Wiley
  • King
  • Tanahashi

INTO THE VOID

Some artists moved beyond the obvious influence of the spontaneous gesture to the other side. 

The Void, or absolute Nothingness, is central to Zen’s understanding of reality.  The Void cannot be understood in a rational way but can be known intuitively.

When one is equally aware of being & non-being, the simultaneous presence of the finite and the infinite, one is said to be Enlightened.

The Void cannot be described in words or images, but can be suggested. Artists such as Reinhardt and Martin attempted to do just that. Their images are so subtle you might think there is nothing there. And indeed a just perceptible membrane of matter hovering over the edge of Nothingness is what is being suggested. Only when we stay focused over time and open our intuitive side does the image emerge.