Lean Into

by Michele Benzamin-Miki

“Art is a possibility filter. The brushwork heals, transforms, opens and changes minds. My life, as an artist, performance artist, and teacher, with over four decades of teaching Zen meditation, and non-violent martial-arts, are integral part of my art, and an important part of my spirituality. I want to make visible this inner world. The brush work comes out of an inner stillness I enter into before and during the creation of a piece. The Enso circle in my art, is a classical Zen symbol, practiced to unify the painter in a single movement of the brush, to the world without beginning and end. A central principle of Japanese calligraphy is Ma, the awareness of negative space around the brush stroke while painting has become a central influence in my painting and drawing. I have been integrating my two styles, brushwork and figurative realism, often placing the figure into the flow of the brushwork to illuminate it. I am a self-taught artist of Japanese and European heritage.”