Many of Wise's early shows in British Columbia took place at the Bau-Xi Gallery, in Vancouver. The Bau-Xi Gallery was established in April, 1965 by Bau-Xi Huang "in order to create a showcase for the many emerging and established Canadian artists in need of a gallery on the West Coast." ("History", www.bau-xi.com, January, 2001) and remains an integral part of the contemporary Canadian art world. This involvement with people and institutions in the arts in British Columbia earned Jack many peers and admirers over the years.

The local influence on Jack Wise was not merely in the context of other artists and scholars. He once said, "We are nature and nature is us." (David Rimmer, Jack Wise: Language of the Brush, 1998), and the beauty and power of the natural surroundings of the Pacific coast and the Gulf Islands, where he made his home, did not fail to move him. Although Wise may have chosen to see the universality in the nature that we are all a part of, the unique power of the sea and the purity of the landscape did emerge in his art in a number of ways.

Fan Module Gregg Simpson

Jack moved to a house on Texada Island, and for years he was surrounded by rocky, glacier-formed beaches. He told his long-time friend Stephen Cummings of time spent beside the ocean, painting the rocks and the driftwood with water-soluble ink for the elements and "the tide to deal with" (Stephen Cummings, "Jack Wise: A Personal View", The Art of Jack Wise, Victoria, 1998, 11). Jack made ink from mushrooms (ibid., 12) and used brushes crafted from cedar bark, among other materials found in his surroundings. Wise centred himself and the instruments of his art in the earth, in the Taoist tradition.

From the late seventies to early eighties, Wise became associated with a group of artists known as the West Coast Surrealists or Hermetics. This group included well-known West Coast artists, such as Gary Lee-Nova, Gregg Simpson, and Ed Varney who returned to the style of the Surrealist movement of the 1920's. They attempted to develop an approach to life that made personal experience a more vital part of their work. Surrealism focused on the Freudian concept that each of these artists had an individual psyche, the opposite of Wise's appreciation of Jungian theory, the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961). In Jungian psychology, all individuals are part of a conscious known as the collective unconscious, shared by humanity and without regard for the barriers of race, culture, and religion. Wise's paintings seem to reflect this philosophy by using several individual strokes to create a unified whole, and through allusions to a god or higher power, a universal belief that exists, in a variety of forms, in all cultures.

Wise's approach did not go through any major changes from the late 1960's to his death. For the most part his works were either calligraphic fields or mandalas; consequently, it can prove to be quite difficult when dating his work. However, he did approach abstract constructions of nature or mysticism using calligraphic brushwork, and certain subjects or themes in series such as the Dorje series. The Dorje series, c. 1985, contains wonderful examples of how Jack Wise simultaneously embraced the richness of colour and the grace and discipline of calligraphy. The strong shapes at the centre are apparent from afar, but the intricacy of the meticulous brush strokes Wise made his life's work reveal entire realms within minute spaces. Dorje is a Tibetan word which may be translated as "indestructible" and "diamond-like". Once these paintings enter the mind, they are like precious gems that, unlike paint and paper, can never be destroyed.