Jef Gunn

Since his early career, Gunn has made use of found materials. Seeds and nutshells, stones, wood, and bits of iron all hold the opportunity to create marks in ink onto fine Chinese papers. This intuitive, repetitive and meditative process evolves into final compositions. The resulting papers, rice-pasted or waxed to panels, echo the traditional mantras that are expressed in his forms.

As a long time practicing and self-described "lay Buddhist", Gunn's core motivation for this current body of work is the Lokeshvara - the meditations of the bodhisattva. For followers of this tradition, Lokeshvara is considered the embodiment (or expression) of the supreme principles of the world. It refers to the practice of seeing the distress of each being in the world and radiating loving kindness, transcendent compassion, and joy in order to release the particular suffering. This acute awareness seems to be particularly timely and comforting considering our current global humanitarian concerns.