Vai Art

THE PAINTINGS




Prints are available in our Webstore.

 

“Alligator Jungle” (Mixed Medium)

aligator_jungle

I thought I would be the only one that saw this as an alligator playground but the moment I showed it to Gail Zappa she said, “I see the happy alligator in this”. Before doing any piece I find a moment of stillness, then just allow the hand to produce whatever it wants in the moment. It’s fascinating to me how what comes out seems to work within itself so simply.

 

“Emperor Penguin”  (Mixed Medium)

emperor_penguins

I have two rules when drawing. First rule is no thinking, just allow it to happen in the moment. And the other rule is no criticizing it as good or bad. Anything that comes out just is what it is. Within that framework there is deep freedom and liberation that can allow your own true uniqueness to enter the world in what you create. That was the approach taken for this piece, and most other pieces I do, so trying to explain what it is is relatively futile. It just is and the viewer has the freedom to see it in their own unique way. 

The one prerequisite I plant within myself is for the final product to hopefully give the viewer the feelings of freedom, expansion and joy within themselves when they look at it. That’s what I felt in every stroke while creating this. 

 

“Flower Eater”  (Acrylic on wood)

flower_eater

This is part of a series of hand painted guitars I occasionally work on. In any form flowers are divine. They are the personification of the sacred in the physical. The way a flower grows from a vine and bursts into life with joy and then returns to it’s source is the microcosm in the macrocosm of the evolution of consciousness itself. 

They come and go without any personal sense of problems. When we recognize the profound beauty in a flower the Universe loves that… don’t you? 

The frame of mind one can enter when conceiving the drawing of a flower is delicious.  

 

“Her Favorite Friend” (Acrylic on canvas)

her_favorite_friend

Every child is instinctually connected to nature and the purpose of the entire creation which the foundation of is infinite freedom, the action being expansion and the reason, joy. Usually we grow out of this closeness with the sacred as we become conditioned by the world, but we can never separate ourselves from it entirely because it is who we are in our essence, the Universe itself. 

 

“JC” (marker on drumhead)

jc

Created on tour in the USA in a lonely hotel room with 2 days off. This was done for an extraordinary person in my life, drummer Jeremy Colson. 

He is one of my greatest teachers. 

 

“Perfect Pitch”  (Mixed Medium)

perfect_pitch

When I was 5 years old I struck a note on a piano for the first time. When I realized that the notes get higher to the right and lower to the left I had a full on epiphany. In that instant a complete understanding of the creative process of music was recognized. At that same moment I also realized that the creation of music is infinite. Written music always looked like profoundly beautiful art to me. All of the symbols in this piece come from music notation, that mysterious language that can reveal the voice of the creator.

 

“The Hills Are Alive”  (Mixed Medium)

the_hills_are_alive

Much of the art I do is done in hotel rooms, backstages while waiting, airports, etc. while on tour. This was done on an airplane on an international flight. Total stream of consciousness movement and then looking at it after and asking it it’s name. 

The name comes from the same place that the art comes from, that infinite well of creativity that resides in all of us. 

 

“There’s a Tree in the Sky”   (Mixed Medium)

theres_a_tree_in_the_sky

I never really drew as a child, perhaps due to feelings of unworthiness, not being good enough, etc. I started when I was 53 when I came to the realization that everybody is good enough, just different. In our essence we are more than good enough. We are the good itself without anything attached. 

This piece is a stream of consciousness drawing in which I deeply enjoyed and delighted in every single little movement of it’s creation.

It’s always a nice surprise to see abstract faces that seem to arise in the art. They always seem charming.    

I just feel good when I look at this piece. I believe that’s it’s simple purpose, enjoy. 

 

“Touching a Rainbow”  (Mixed Medium)

touching_a_rainbow

I started a series of pieces based on the life size outline of my own hand. This is what came out when the inspiration of touching a rainbow arose.  

 

“Watcher of the Skies” (Mixed Medium)

watcher_of_the_skies

Inspired by the story of when the first settlers arrived in the new land (America). But the natives (Indians) could not see the ships as they approached the shore because their minds could not comprehend them. As the story goes, it wasn’t until one of the native “holy” men saw the waters on the shore acting odd and then set his gaze carefully out to sea. That’s when the virtually unbelievable ships were first realized. 

If that’s the case perhaps one day our own gaze will evolve to a place where our attention will allow us to see dimensionally. Perhaps when in the process of visualizing and creating, we are already there.  

 

“When Worlds Collide” 

wwc

Stream of consciousness. Put this here, then this, then that, and keep focus on the tip of the drawing tool and let the piece unfold on it’s own.

Creativity is our greatest gift. It can be a form of love.  One day our name and our life story, along with everything we ever created, including history, will be dust and totally forgotten. But everything in this time space reality is built on top of, and evolves from everything that came before it. As such everything contains everything else and everything is connected. In this way anything we create in some way contributes to and evolves the entire Universe, and we are always creating in every moment of the now, the only time there is.