Awakening to the Zen-filled Universe of Elliston Roshi
by Yu-Kai Lin
The world is loud and bustling. To learn to quiet the mind is a lifelong journey. In this series of 11 new paintings by Zen Sensei, sumi ink & watercolor artist Elliston Roshi, we come across a tranquil collection of artworks that interplay between stillness and vibrancy.
Refracted, reflective glass panels with sumptuous color fields plume across glass panes and gesso panels like a smoked-filled room of metaphysical revelations. A dance between structure and fluidity transport the viewer into Elliston’s world: a universe of shadowboxed three-dimensional jewel tones, magically mysterious and captivatingly ethereal.
In Deep Greens & Blues (sumi ink and watercolor on glass & gesso panel 41 x 61 x 3.5 inches), the viewer is transported through a rectangular vortex centered onto the back of the foreground glass. A wave of golden marigold cascades down the dense structure as it envelops the walls with luscious tones.
Complimentarily, in Dance of the Gorgon (sumi ink and watercolor on glass & gesso panel 41 x 61 x 3.5 inches), Elliston explores hues of ruby and crimson on a similar background of organic plumes pushing against humanity’s structures and defined borders.
Between these two works are a set of four Cantatas (red, yellow, green, & violet quartet - sumi ink and watercolor on glass & gesso panel 25 x 25 inches each). Compositionally, this quartet entrancingly lures the viewer to listen to each singular voice as a part of a whole. Perhaps Elliston is stating each individual is instrumental in creating vibrancy in our symphonic world.
In Solar Anomaly (sumi ink & watercolor on gesso panel 53 x 40 x 3.5 inches), the architectural L-shape structure thoughtfully follows the weft of the frame directing the viewer to the upper half of the artwork. The lines fade into oblivion like a momentary breath of bliss, intentionally Zen-full.
Elliston’s frontier of reflection is fully realized in September Song (sumi ink on mirror and glass in a shadowbox 37 x 28.5 x 2.5 inches). In this piece we are hazily shifted into a yin-yang realm where opposing sides mirror and counter balance with oxidized, Martian-like rusty resonances.
Elliston in his quest for visual phenomena and illuminated chroma is establishing his marker in our parenthesis of time. There is an almost cosmic nature to the flow and meditative state of mind in his art. As light comes to our field of vision, we are awakened to Zen in art, in practice, in permanency.
