Chinese brush painting

Ink on single xuan, wet mounted on mulberry paper.  9.5×19 inches.

The seals are: top right – my name seal 马文慧印 and bottom right – 生 “life”

“Who is the horse that carried you through 2025?” This was the challenge offered by Paard Verzameld global equine art collective for our final art challenge of the 2025. I had six weeks to reflect back and create a work to represent what inspired, challenged, and transformed me this year.

“The horse who looks back” is my answer to the horse who carried me through 2025. I spent countless hours sitting mindfully with horses this year, both making art and just being with them. After finding home midyear, I felt the transformative impact of being with the same horses over time. Not only witnessing them, but being witnessed BY them. I got to feel how they changed – their social ups and downs, health challenges, and how connected they are to their physical place. All of this is of course so relatable and full of wisdom for me. This painting represents all the horses who shared space with me this year, who looked back at me, and it’s also especially an image of my friend Coco of Horse and Heart, who lives under these incredible Redwood trees. The moment captured in this painting is a moment of free choice where he chose to turn TOWARD me, with openness and curiosity. Seeing the way he looks back at me softens my heart every time.