Karma of the Dragon: The Art of Jack Wise

karma of the dragon: the art of jack wise




title: caligraphy

They spent many hours discussing Chinese philosophy and calligraphy together, and Lin Chien Shih found poetic words to describe Wise's calligraphic style in the catalogue from the show Jack Wise: A Decade of Work. These descriptive words convey not only the calligraphy on the page, but also the dance of the brush as it twists, glides, hovers and turns in the artist's trained hand:

Looking at his work, sometimes it is like a dancer's sash fluttering in the wind, sometimes like a giant boulder falling off a high precipice, sometimes it is like a small ripple caressing the surface of a lake, and at others like a tidal wave ripping the ocean apart.

Wise applied his calligraphic style to his personal response to the West Coast rainforest, creating a combination of natural and mystical imagery. Friend Stephen Cummings wrote Jack a letter during his years on Texada Island in which he compared the calligraphic strokes in a painting called Greenfield to the lichen growing on the trees outside his studio ("Jack Wise: A Personal View", The Art of Jack Wise, 1999).
moving through mystery
zoom in Moving Through
Mystery
Jack Wise
In 1969, poet Peter Trower published a limited run of his poetry called Moving Through the Mystery (Talonbooks, Vancouver B.C.), with illustrations by Jack Wise. Wise wrote of his first experience illustrating poetry: "Peter Trower's poetry at its best celebrates life and its mystery. I'm grateful to be able to add a visual footnote to some of his evocative insights." (ibid.) All of these illustrations have been printed in black and white, and rely on the linear quality of calligraphy. Moving Through The Mystery, which illustrates the title poem, involves flame-like forms rising up, shimmering and vibrating. It embodies the old Chinese saying on calligraphy: "You paint the black to reveal the white." Ghost Story and The Sea Runs Diagonally are two other illustrations from the book.

The surfaces of Jack Wise's paintings are energized by the brush strokes that created them. For Wise, this was the ultimate truth of his calligraphy. He said, "The only language I trust anymore is the language of the brush." (Rimmer)

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