ARTWORK BY Roslyn Levin

Artist: Roslyn Levin - Ontario, CANADA

• https://www.artbyroslyn.on.ca/
• https://www.facebook.com/ArtByRoslyn
• https://artbyroslynsumi-e.blogspot.com/
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsidPA_w9Eh_TQDHM7RQvfw

 Roslyn Levin, SCA - Artist's Statement

Sumi-e is a thoughtful artform.

Body, Breath & Brush are one as I move & breathe with the brush, reaching within to share my spirit with the image on the page in the form of Zen-like renditions of animals, birds, nature & dancers

With sensitive brushwork, precise, yet spontaneous, motion and emotion emerge from the washi (rice paper).

Each piece is painted many times, removing brushstrokes refining composition through use of white space (yohaku) and placement of the namestamp (hanko).

With so few brushstrokes, the grays loaded onto the brush; how the brush is held; wetness of brush & paper; speed & rhythm of breathing are considered.

The key is simplicity, elegance, beauty & serenity.

This is a moving meditation. When the brush is held ready to paint, a calm settles over me. I am one with brush, paint, paper and water flowing and dancing as I create beauty.

My aim in painting, besides bringing beauty to the world, is to help people be more in touch with the world which we are losing due to environmental irresponsibility in the hope that those who have not awoken to the needs of our planet with become aware that we must work to preserve it or it will be gone.

Sumi-e, I have learned, is not just a painting technique. It is a way of approaching life. To work constantly toward perfection in all one does, realizing that it takes time and practice and that one never truly reaches that perfection.

My artist name is Spring Water or Shun Swee in Japanese. This name reflects how I paint and the manner in which I approach my subjects. I try and live up to it with each painting I make.

In my almost 50 years of painting in sumi-e and the 9 years during which I painted in shodo – sumi-e sensei Tomoko Kodama and shodo sensei Noriko Maeda – I have been honoured to win many awards which reflect so well upon my teachers.
Currently I have chosen to concentrate my practice primarily on sumi-e.

https://www.artbyroslyn.on.ca/