Shang Ming 上明

Shang Ming, born in 1971 in Dongshan, Fujian. In 1985, he became a monk under the guidance of Master Shang Guangxia Ping and studied at the Minnan Buddhist College. From 1991 to 2005, he served Master Shang Guangxia Ping. In 2007, introduced by the contemporary monk Xiang Zhengmiaoguang, he studied Chinese painting under Mr. Yuan Na’en in Shanghai. In 2009, he enrolled in Professor Chen Ping’s landscape language class at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 2012, he joined the traditional landscape painting class at the China Academy of Art. In 2016, he took residence at Juefeng Lecture Temple.

Shang Ming entered the Buddhist monastery at a young age. Besides his Zen practice, he entertained himself with music and books, devotedly studied painting, and was spiritually nourished by the teachings of eminent monks like Juran, Fachang, Huangbo Xiyun, Yinyuan, and Gaoquan. As the ancients said, seeking teachers and exploring the path is part of Zen practice. Shang Ming, by nature, loves mountains and wanders among clouds and waters. He often sketches temples and hermitages, paying respects between Tiantai and Yandang. His works follow nature, created with ease, simple and unsophisticated, innocent and pure. Shang Ming cultivates his spirit through painting and calligraphy, finding enlightenment in nature. His paintings are filled with purity and a rustic charm, wonderfully transcendent, presenting a Zen landscape distinctly different from the academic ink paintings. Today, the artist Shang Ming is a unique plein air painter in the “Qingliang” realm, a carefree ink wanderer semi-reclusive in the Yandang Mountains, living as a monk or layperson as the world dictates.