Fifteen exciting new works of art by Weimin He went on display in the Bodleian Weston Library on January 7. Here is a taster. One of them has inspired me to write a sonnet which I have titled ‘The Mists of Dao’. (see below) Seeing Weimin working on the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter site inspired my poem ‘An Artist Observes’ which is on a hoarding just off Walton Street. Weimin designed the cover of Oxford Castaways showing all the castaways’ chosen objects on Oxtopia .(see below) His castaway choice was a folio of prints from Rembrandt to Ren Bonian Wu . See Weimin in Castaways Revisited some Poets , Authors and Artists .
The Mists of Dao by Sylvia Vetta
I reach out to touch it, real but not concrete.
Celtic mists swirl in with rain from the West
to shower the East, clouded in the spirit of the Dao, and meet
in the mind of the artist. Fingers grasp the brush to request
the muses for movement, swift and light.
Brushstrokes colour the paper red with his spirit.
Memories of Shanbei come in shades of black and white.
Amid the stones of Oxford past and present he paints it.
His being connects time and his energy fires
a gateway from the past to the here and now, and clear
ahead cranes point skyward with the dreaming spires.
Visions of a future beyond hard lines appear.
To the music of a new time in a new place
This is a pic of Weimin and I by the hoardings in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter. They are likely to remain there for another year. I hope the title An Artist Observes isn’t too awful a pun given the close proximity of the hoarding to the glorious 18th century Radcliffe Observatory .
The Radcliffe Observatory : Do you notice the mists of Dao in this fabulous painting by Weimin ?