Zen-like in the Name of Warhol

New Zealand artist Max Gimblett’s exhibition “The Sound of One Hand” brings to focus the world of Zen Buddhism and is on through 27 November as part of Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum’s Word of God series. An artist living and working in New York City since 1972, Gimblett has been focusing on Buddhism since 1965 when he first encountered poet and novelist Kenneth Patchen’s painted “picture poems” in San Francisco. “It has never been the main focus,” Gimblett, 75, says, admittedly “sharing my interests equally with Jungian studies and the history of visual art, particularly painting.” The works on view have an overall zen-like quality, especially the earlier brushworks on paper that date as far back as the 1980s. Here, the work is distinctly divided into two types — enso and koan paintings. “The single stroke does not allow for any modification — the brushed circle,” he says. “In the circle nothing stops, nothing comes to an end, it just keeps going.” Gimblett was born in Auckland.