Featured Painting

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the Five 五嶽朝天神威赫

36" x 72"

Full Description

When Fei Pai was a youngster in middle school, he was fascinated by the shelves and shelves of his father’s collection of calligraphy tablets (Bei) 碑. He was highly impressed by the “Tien Fa Shen Chen Bei” 天發神讖碑. Its dignified outlines and strong, sharp ax-like brush strokes radiate power.

Years later when Fei Pai seriously began painting, he incorporated the calligraphic strokes of Tsao Shu草書 and Tien Fa 天發神讖碑 to create Fei Pai’s Celestial Horses. Interweaving these two distinct and extremely opposite styles, Fei Pai creates unique and unpredictable compositions for “Expressive Splash Ink Celestial Horses”.

Tsao Shu is a script type of calligraphy style. Its free flowing and harmonious strokes give a sense of great energy and movement. Fei Pai grasped the characteristics of the strokes to express the invigorating energy that travels from the horse’s eye to its mane and to its tail. His horses burst forth with an unstrained, continuous, and abundant flow of energy - dynamic yet graceful.

Conversely, Fei Pai uses Tien Fa’s mountain-like heaviness of the hidden sharp point brush strokes to depict the horse’s mane and tail. That deep penetrating strength gives his paintings a presence that demands your attention.

As he gazed at the large piece of blank rice paper for the Milpitas exhibit, he felt his spirit resonating with his recently found the thousands-of-years old, out-of-print, Tien Fa tablet. An image of the five holy mountains in china came to his mind which Chinese people believe the gods of the mountains protect the land. Seizing upon this good omen he started to paint. He then completed this painting, entitled “the Five”, from beginning to end in a single breath. He gazed at “the Five” after he finished. He was pleasantly astounded to see the harmony of the five stallions springing out in various directions. The Stallions symbolize five reciprocal clustered forces filling the power of the universe – Positive, Stimulating, and Synergistic.

With this painting of “the Five”, it is evident to Fei Pai that these predestined relationships - his Celestial Horses, Tien Fa, and Tsao Shu, bond across time and space. Fei Pai’s art and calligraphy manifest with each other in this modern era.