What kind of style do I work with? - My “spiritual awakening”

This is an interesting question. In the past years, I had identified myself as a fine line tattoo artist. I noticed that I quite enjoyed the intricacy of the marks. Slowly, I tapped into watercolour as I found beauty in the boundless expressions of shapes and colours while lines cease to exist. (see my gallery here)

So what kind of style do I work with now? First of all, I would love to share my journey of spiritual awakening with you.

PS - I dislike using the phrase “spiritual awakening” as its usage has been overly abused on social media. I essentially think that letting go of spiritual awakening is the first step of “achieving” this very thing. The most ironic of all is that there is no other place to be than here and now; there is nothing else to be awakened to, only awareness.

My art journey feels like many doors that are opening and closing. That being said, everything happened in the divine order which lead me here. As hard as life may be sometimes, I would not trade this for the world.

My journey of working with my art in hopes that I never have to abandon it for my survival has always been a miraculous wonder; yet everything seems to always work out one way or another. For the longest time, I would make sure that I had to have one specific style I am absolutely excellent at so I would stay in control to ensure that my work is guaranteed to be “good”. There was a lot of tension and resistance built beyond venturing out of my comfort zone, suffocating my intuition and starving my creativity. A lot of artificial and superficial structures were put in place to ensure “my success”; in other words, the definitions of “art, beauty, good, bad, success, failure…” were the result of my taught helplessness I never even thought to dismantle. To me at the time, no amount of technical training would be enough for me to have faith in the impeccability of my creations. 

The more I grew as an artist and human being, the more my flesh was pressed against and into the infrastructure of all that was installed in me but not by me. All I knew was that my desire to fully express myself has steadily ripened my fruit whose skin could burst at any second. The metamorphosis of my practice has been a process of my deconditioning. As my expression becomes fuller and fuller of my true nature, the walls that isolate me from the rest of the universe become gradually thinner, making the other side more and more conspicuous to me. My empathic nature becomes sharper, overwhelming me with tsunamis of feelings that travel into and through my body. 

This broke me. 

These are some fruit trees grown inside of a temple I visited in China. I saw them way before I even entered the temple. They were absolutely thriving. The hard limitation of the walls did not bother their growth at all and they don't seem to be interested in stopping.

Everything that I had considered as safe and reassuring then became the very thing that shatters my world as it crumbles like aged paint. I had to start from the beginning, building my own infrastructure, cultivating safety. 

As a result, I slowly saw my own style disintegrated in the process; I mean, what is even mine? The regeneration of my Self created a perfect condition where my ego dissolves, even just for a set period of time. This empty state of being slowly bled into my work and the sessions I hold. Upon the touch of one’s aura and skin, I could see flashes of images that I have never seen before. Rather than forcing them to conform to my personal style, I trust my abilities to execute images that authentically capture their essence. 

This is to say that I now no longer subscribe to one or even a few styles. Instead, as long as one feels called to trust me in my creations, I have faith that I will be able to deliver the most fitting and unique art just for them.

This is one wall of my home studio. These are some paintings I have made. Before I painted each one, I established trust in myself and faith in my intentions that each painting, while carrying its own signature essence, will be just perfect. The same goes for all the art I make: no fear and rumination; only love and execution.

In Chinese, we say 心诚则灵, meaning that as long as one can sustain faith and trust in their heart, manifestation will take place. For me to sustain a wide range of artistic styles whose essences I channel, I devote myself to my daily practice of studying under the scholars and artists in many fields and eras from both worlds of the West and East. This is another way of saying that I commit daily to my magic through drawing, painting, reading, writing, meditating, playing, crying, laughing… so that I may stay eloquent and precise in my craft as I offer and only offer my best.

So…what kind of style do I work with? This is truly a question to a craftsman who is also a magician, and to that, I answer: “do you believe in magic?”

We were sifting through a bunch of records in a record shop. There are categories where hundreds of records are held, each one unique from the rest. I am also the record keeper of artistic styles that have made themselves available to me and vice versa. The only limitation is level of faith and trust in the creative process. Artists are truly magicians, wouldn't you agree?