Perhaps no other sect of Buddhism requires so much discussion of its identity or how it defines itself visually than Chan or Zen. This is largely because from its earliest stages, with the Nirvana Sutra as the foundation, two truths were articulated for Chan: one that there are no four noble truths and there is no (path to) enlightenment because we are already nirvanic—nirvana occurs everywhere. With the burden of no conventional truth and the corresponding lack of iconic focus in most Zen temples, except for the occasional patriarchal figure, Chan/Zen art has defied easy definition. Alternatively, we might understand Zen art through its practice not through its objects. The collection of odd figures and fools in the standard Chan pictorial repertoire, might be understood as the result of Chan/Zen attracting the unconventional––various folk figures with odd or quirky twists that circulated regionally and locally in the areas Chan developed. The importance of anti-canonical, unmediated, and unconventional in Chan attracted this cohort of figures who grin and sleep in the Zen pictorial landscape. Other paintings picture the generational succession of teachers and abbots in portraits emphasizing Chan lineage and teacher to student, mind-to-mind transmission. Since the 1980’s in Modern and Contemporary Art circles, Chan art has seen a surprising resurgence in non-religious spheres, largely for or precisely because of its flexibility of expression. It has been deployed as a cipher in a range of difficult circumstances where artists wish to suggest more than is viably expressed; e.g., Xu Bing, Book from the Sky 天書 (1987-91) and Where the Dust Itself Collect? (2004); Qiu Zhijie 邱志傑, Writing Lantingxu 1000 Times (1990-95); Yang Jiechang 楊詰蒼, 100 Layers of Ink 千層墨, No. 1 (1994); and Deep Liquid - Self Portrait 深水/自畫像 (2007); and All Those Whom I have Forgotten 我所忘掉的所有人 (2009), to name a few important works. To explore the use of Chan in Contemporary art and possible future directions, this paper will concentrate on a group of new works that use non-ink performance suggesting the presence of ink, to explore and create a new frontier of expression meant to offer new interpretations of Chinese culture on a global stage previously closed to East Asian cultural practitioners. But what remains of ink art practice without ink? It seems obvious that we when talk of “Ink Art,” that “ink” would be a necessary feature or ingredient. If we take this term literally, then simply ink is all that is needed to make ink art possible: one implies the other. Beyond these materials one has to consider the disciplined practice and training that have long been linked to brush and ink. Liu Jianhua’s experimentation in Jingdezhen porcelain, Screaming Walls 啸墙 (2011), references the grass-style calligraphy of the Tang dynasty monk Huaisu 懷素. Liu creates a wall dripping in black porcelain brus
