Zen Player has been inspired to make art since childhood, and his works still express a spontaneous freedom with fluid texture, vibrant color and sensually abstracted forms.

Born in Southern California in 1955, Zen spent his formative years in New Zealand, where his family immigrated in the early 1960’s. From pristine surroundings and obscure art masters, he learned about light, color, composition, oil painting, ceramics, metal & wood sculpture, while gaining creative expertise with a multitude of raw materials.

At age 20, Zen returned to San Francisco to further his studies at the SF Academy of Art, and enter the local gallery scene. However, the galleries were too conservative for his experimental style, so instead he worked with architects, designers and decorators who could appreciate his ability to provide totally original solutions to their needs.

Over the next 20 years, Zen opened several studios in Marin County, exhibiting and contributing to private collections, homes, corporations and public spaces – including San Francisco City Hall Annex, The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City, Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and others.

His art has also been featured on popular album, magazine and book covers, in brochures, packaging, advertising formats and television programs, and has won prestigious art-design awards.

After leaving the USA in 1996, Zen briefly returned to New Zealand, then lived in Hawaii for 3 years before settling in Byron Bay Australia. Here he creates sensuous abstract, figurative and terascape works, as well as “LightBodies”, unique illuminated sculptures made from paper & resin cast directly from the human form.

Statement

The art that comes through me is an expression of joy and light in this moment, each moment of its creation. While a journey may be traced through the entire body of my works, each piece is autonomous, reflecting the totality of Presence, the sensuality of feeling, a hologram of delight. My work is art-play in the most serious sense of the term, opening a portal into a luminous Realm for all who would venture in.

Life is complex, often complicated and many times confronting. When I enter this Realm of Creativity, dive into color, luxuriate in texture, tease ideas into form, the struggle of “me” disappears, the enjoyment of “I” reverberates. Time & space evaporate into the eternal moment of Now, and I am free. As a result of this active meditation, true art appears. I believe its identity is an emanation of Truth because there is no struggle, no judgment, no possession or desire to control its existence. Only awareness and appreciation, as if I had walked into a room and experienced my art for the first time.

In a world where art is often categorized as decoration, intellectualism, political statement, therapy, propaganda or investment, my works find their own voice, whispering of sweet deep places within us that long to be tickled. For me, making art is like making love; a passionate and mysterious distraction touched by a desire for bliss, manifesting as waves of creative energy until they explode upon the art surface – transcending thoughts, ideas, and any concern for temporal or spiritual gain. In this ecstatic moment of orgasmic creation, we are all free.

Gallery

Goddess of Depth

Origin

Monarch

Elementelles

Outback

Dolphin Queen

Full Moons

Hottie

Journey

[wpcol_4fifth id=”” class=”” style=””]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among Stones[/wpcol_4fifth]