~ Feng-Ho Cheng, Art Connoisseur, Formosa

I feel that Supreme Master Ching Hai created her artworks with a playful and ordinary mind. I feel that "Celestial Art" by Supreme Master Ching Hai contains intuitive and sensible art that is spirituality crystallized.
Although Supreme Master Ching Hai is not a professionally trained artist, her works have a fresh and clear beauty that comes across in a natural and non-artificial way. Supreme Master’s works are unlike those of common academic artists who emphasize aesthetics and elements of form such as lines, colors and composition.

But I feel the works of Supreme Master Ching Hai are a natural and integrated creation of body, mind and soul. Since Supreme Master herself often travels all over the world, with her international perspective, attentive nature, and spiritual experience, she is different from naturally gifted artists who grow up purely in the countryside. It’s completely different.

Because I used to teach as an associate professor at the Taipei Fine Art Museum, I have seen many contemporary artworks from diverse nationalities. But I feel that Supreme Master Ching Hai is completely different from either the trained academic artists, or the naturally gifted artists who grew up in the countryside. I feel that the artworks inspired by her international perspective and her experience from spiritual practice are certainly unique.

This is my feeling after I initially knew of Supreme Master Ching Hai and after viewing her artworks. Actually, it has only been just over a month since I had the opportunity to know Supreme Master Ching Hai. But I expressed my initial intuitive feelings when I first visited Hsihu Ashram last month, and viewed some of the replica paintings on display.

I feel Supreme Master Ching Hai is not bound by any aesthetic framework. She has unlimited creative material and unlimited subjects. Her works emit a child-like purity and a heavenly inspiration, which is missing in the works of ordinary artists. Most artists only seek artistic achievements.The feeling I received from Supreme Master Ching Hai is more than this.I feel Supreme Master Ching Hai creates art with an ordinary mindset. She is unattached to any rules, and plays with great ease.

Yesterday I visited Hsihu, this pure land on Earth, developed and built by the Supreme Master. Instead of magnificent palaces, you only see small bridges, running water, bamboo groves. The feeling of “flowers and trees thrive in desolation” is full of Zen atmosphere. I think this is creative and aesthetic living in practice.
When I was responsible for promoting creative and aesthetic living at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, we often felt that art should not have fences, it should not only be found in the hall of fine arts.

Real art should be the collective integration of the discrete beauty in our lives. So when I visited the Rainbow art Garden at Hsihu, I felt that everything here is in line with what I wanted to promote before at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. If I was able to see this Celestial Art earlier, that would have been wonderful.

I feel that although Supreme Master’s works are spontaneous drawings or improvised designs, through many of her Celestial Jewelry pieces and music creations, we can see the expression of her love for all sentient beings and the creations of a liberated spirit. I feel the perfection and satisfaction from her paintings, which brings people not only an aesthetic inner joy, but also a sense of compassion and peace. I also feel every piece of Supreme Master Ching Hai’s work was inspired by Heaven.

So, all her artworks came from Heaven, instead of from an intentionally trained routine. I think the biggest insight I got from this book is that actually each of us can create. As long as we have a living body and a pure heart, and realize that we, ourselves, are perfect and full of vitality, actually everyone can unconditionally paint, sing, or dance of the blossoming flowers of our lives. Finally I feel that Supreme Master Ching Hai is a piece of art herself. Because I feel no matter whether she is in plain or beautiful dress, she is unaffected and unattached. She is an embodiment of beauty and spiritual splendor.

~ Feng-Ho Cheng, Art Connoisseur, Formosa