NISKY

One vivid example of this synesthetic approach is Guide (2024), in which NISKY references his  own musical composition “God’s Vibration”. The verticality of the composition is reminiscent of traditional Chinese scroll paintings of waterfalls, yet its saturated greens and thickly sculpted  textures evoke the tactile depth of oil on canvas. The foliage bursts from the cliffside with a  sculptural density, shaped not only by brush but by fingers and tools—tracing a rhythm that feels as  much heard as seen. Figures embedded in the landscape appear to journey across time, climbing  toward a world that hovers between memory and myth. 

​

Other works, such as Midsummer Darling (2024), also draw from NISKY’s own musical practice, extending the relationship between sonic and visual language. And beyond his original  compositions, he cites historical musical works as well—most notably John Cage’s 4’33”, which appears in Changing Lights in the South (2025), inscribed on the book held by a central figure.  Cage’s seminal piece, often misinterpreted as silence, was shaped by his deep engagement with Zen Buddhism, particularly its concepts of chance, emptiness, and non-duality. That a 20th-century  American composer sought inspiration in East Asian philosophy, and that a contemporary Chinese  painter embraces Cage’s work in return, creates a striking cultural echo—a transhistorical feedback loop where East and West no longer mirror each other, but resonate. 

​

NISKY’s work thrives in this resonance. His visual language is not only cross-cultural, but also deeply entangled with the historical ideologies embedded in the works he references. This layered visual and philosophical exchange becomes especially apparent in two recurring sources: the Tang dynasty scroll, Li Zhaodao’s  Emperor Minghuang Going to Shu, and Benozzo Gozzoli’s Procession of the Magi (1459–60). Despite originating from vastly different cultural contexts, both are highly  associated with authority and religious symbolism, reflecting the spiritual and political hierarchies  of their respective times. NISKY does not passively borrow from these traditions—instead, he  reconfigures their logic, infusing them with new meaning through the lens of his own hybrid cosmology. 

​

Emperor Minghuang Going to Shu, a classic of Chinese blue-and-green landscape painting, offers more than stylistic inspiration. Its symbolic geography and atmospheric storytelling reflect a  worldview in which human fate is interwoven with the vast rhythms of nature. Originally a visual  retelling of imperial exile, the scroll merges political narrative with spiritual allegory. In NISKY’s hands, it becomes a foundational structure—a pictorial philosophy—onto which other traditions are  layered. The sweeping compositions of Guide, Midsummer Darling, and Sunset Melody (2024)  reflect this influence, suggesting time as spatial journey through layered terrains. In Sunset Melody,  a deity rests in the lower right corner—a hybrid figure part Chinese Immortal, part Western goddess  crowned with a halo. Even the instrument in her hands seems to straddle traditions, resembling both  the Chinese Pipa and the Greek Lute, forming yet another strand in NISKY’s interwoven cosmology. 

​

While the Chinese scroll reflects a vision rooted in landscape and destiny, the Italian Renaissance  provides NISKY with a framework centered on human presence and symbolic power. Gozzoli’s Procession of the Magi, a richly detailed Renaissance fresco from the Medici Palace chapel, introduces an entirely different visual logic: linear perspective, individualized portraiture, and  decorative spectacle. Yet thematically, it too was a statement of divine power and cultural  supremacy, visually aligning the Medici family with sacred history. NISKY draws from this  structure to construct visual narratives that retain spatial depth while resisting fixed ideological  framing. In Midsummer Darling, for instance, Gozzoli’s influence emerges in the ceremonial arrangement of figures and the ornate density of forms—yet the composition resists Renaissance  order and hierarchy, unfolding instead as a drifting constellation of symbolic episodes, open to  interpretation rather than prescription. 

​

This delicate balance between the walk-through composition of Chinese landscape painting and the  self-assertive authorship of the Renaissance artist finds visual and conceptual cohesion in NISKY’s red name seal, stamped clearly on each work. The seal recalls the collectors’ and artists’ marks of classical Chinese literati painting, where authorship is embedded in a broader lineage of artistic and  scholarly tradition. At the same time, it resonates with the Renaissance emergence of the artist as an  autonomous figure, signaling intention, invention, and individual vision. In this act of stamping,  NISKY does not align himself with one tradition over the other, but instead constructs a bridge  between them. The seal becomes more than a signature; it is a self-inscription across cultural and  historical divides, anchoring his vision at the intersection of inherited tradition and contemporary authorship. 

​​

In this way, NISKY’s work is not about reconciling differences, but inhabiting them fully. His paintings do not offer resolution, but sustain an ongoing dialogue—between image and sound, East and West, memory and myth. They present not a fixed paradise, but a Paradiso non finito—a  paradise unfinished, still forming itself in the act of being seen. Like maps that shift depending on  who draws them, NISKY’s canvases are shaped by a deeply personal, yet globally attuned vision. What emerges is not a seamless synthesis, but a layered coexistence—where references, echoes, and  tensions converge into landscapes that are as fractured as they are whole, as ancient as they are yet  to come.