Cloud King

Artist:

Joel Biroco

http://www.biroco.com/

Joel Biroco lives in London, England. His paintings, which are mostly abstract, come out of a long interest in the I Ching or Book of Changes, Daoism, Zen, and the occult. Under his birth name of S J Marshall he wrote the book "The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the I Ching" (Columbia University Press, 2001). He now runs a website dedicated to the Book of Changes called Yijing Dao.

Inspired by Chinese art and philosophy, Biroco paints spontaneously to see what comes, in the spirit of wuwei, meaning "not doing" or "doing nothing", which he also practises in everyday life. A big breakthrough in his style came when he attended evening classes in Chinese calligraphy in the late 80s. The classes were taught by the Singaporean artist Da Wu Tang, then doing his masters in London, who imparted an approach to ink and brushwork that far exceeded the usual paintings of bamboo joints.