Most of the time in Western art the Empty Space is considered as background or blank space. Something that is spared and must be filled in. Whole libraries have been written about the fear towards the empty space, the white canvas, so how do we start when we have a blank page before us? How do we intervene the white space?

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For Eastern art the Empty Space is the fourth of the principles of the Taoist Rules for Beauty. “Being and not being engender each other. We mold clay to make pottery, but it is in the empty space where the utility of the jug resides, therefore, we should take equally advantage to what it is, just as we recognize the usefulness of what it is not”. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, XI.

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The Taoist painters treat the Empty Space as a positive matter, as the origin of form, the womb of shape. Considering these rules we will find new ways to work with space, to see the Empty Space! The balance between the use of positive and negative spaces is key to aesthetic compositions.

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This workshop will start from an experimental alphabet or a formal one with a personal twist and will work the space issues, trying to accomplish new compositions where space is not the blank portion of the paper.