It was an awful drive to the Mid-Wales Arts Centre today… wet and windy over the mountains.
When we got there, Prof X managed to navigate the barns, and we arrived at the start of the talk by the exhibiting artists, Dr June Forster and Junko Burton MA.
It was an ideal location for an exhibition of abstract landscapes that asked what lies between the seen and the unseen. My son accompanied me as Prof X hasn’t got his hoist fitted yet on the new car or in the house, so I am still reliant on my son’s assistance. My son is a cinematographer, so his take on the day is always refreshingly different to mine. We returned to the idea of ambiguity. His take was summed up as, ‘if your aim is ambiguity, you still need to understand the intention without the artist’s explanation’.
Is that true? Does he think like that because he’s a cinematographer or because he is my son? Do I think like that?
The fact that I can acknowledge my unease and yet still can’t pinpoint how I feel about that statement is intriguing. It may explain why I have chosen to interrogate the black square and pink circle in a sketchbook and why I still explore materials within my practice. Notice I said explore materials, not that I paint.
Today’s talk had a Japanese sensibility, and Forster and Burton discussed the Japanese philosophy of Ma.
During my time in Japan, I thought I understood Ma.
Ma is the Japanese art of perfect timing. The space between notes creates music, and pauses between words give meaning to sentences. The ‘between things’ that makes them matter. It’s the moment before a dancer moves, the white space around text on a page, or the zen garden placement of a single rock. In Japanese philosophy, Ma is this meaningful emptiness. It’s not just absence or ambiguity. It’s more the expectant possibility.
As I looked at their work, I couldn’t see the visuals of that.
They were full, where was the space, why couldnt I see it. Was I looking in the wrong place.
I remembered that Ma teaches us that emptiness isn’t empty at all…
These artists were searching for that space…
Digital artists play with Ma to embrace white space; apps are shedding cluttered interfaces for cleaner, more purposeful designs. Game creators are learning that moments of quiet make the action more intense.
Maybe Ma, in this exhibition context, isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about giving people space to think, feel, and exist. In a world of endless noise and constant content, maybe that’s exactly what we need. Ma isn’t about making beautiful things; it is about creating spaces for reflection.
I love Marina Abramović’s performance art, in which stillness becomes a more powerful form of communication than movement. Yet these paintings seemed busy busy busy…
Ma says the most powerful statement is the one we don’t make. How was Ma at work here? How could these busy brush strokes and multi layered paintings turn nothing into something, absence into presence?
Only now as I write this blog post do I begin to see the exhibition with different eyes. Could Forster and Burton’s Ma be the process of painting itself. The physical act of painting was the space. Or could I not see the space because it was my mind that was cluttered not their painting.
Interesting day…
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‘Seen: Unseen – What Lies Between’ showing in the Main Barn Gallery of the Mid-Wales Arts Centre until Sunday 11th of May. Centre opens Wednesday to Sunday 11am – 4pm
Mx.D.P 
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