Virginia at a recent gallery opening

Born in Washington, DC of British diplomatic parents, Virginia Lloyd-Davies and her husband Dennis DiVito moved from Scotland to Rockbridge County, VA in 1986. A Chinese brush artist since 1976, she has paintings in private collections in the U.S, China, Britain, Europe, Japan and Kenya. Her teacher is Chinese Master Painter I-Hsiung Ju, with whom she travels regularly to China and Taiwan.

Artwork exhibited at:

US Embassies & Ambassador's Residences in Kenya and Guatemala
The Veerhoff Galleries & Salomon Smith Barney, Washington, DC
Federal Home Loan & Mortgage Company (Freddie Mac), Washington, DC
Artisans on Washington Street, Lexington, VA
Cox Cable and First Union Bank, Roanoke, VA; The Little Gallery, Smith Mountain Lake, VA
Any Angle Gallery, Huntington, NY; CRS Sirrine Corporation, Chicago, IL
The Pinner Gallery, London, England; Universal Hall, Findhorn, Scotland
Keswick Hall, Charlottesville, VA; Merck head offices, Philadelphia, PA
Zhang-Jia-Jie People's Hospital, Hunan Province, & Wuxi Academy of Art, China

Demonstrations for Chinese master artists in Shanghai and Jiang Yin, China, 2004, 2006
Performances & Exhibitions: Washington & Lee University, Lexington, VA 1998, 2002 & 2003
Performances & Exhibitions: Studio 11, Lexington, VA 2000, 200l, 2010
One-Woman Shows: Alleghany Highlands Arts & Crafts Center, Clifton Forge, VA 1998, 2009
One-Woman Shows: Any Angle Gallery, Huntington, NY & Hargrave Winery, Long Island, NY 1998
One-Woman Shows: Open Center, SoHo, NYC 1992 & Medical College of VA, Richmond, VA 1992
Group Shows: Beijing & Shanghai Academies of Art & Amoy University, China 1993, 2006
Group Show: Lyndon House Arts Center, Athens, GA 2010
Joyful Brush® performances for American Heart Association Annual Convention, Dallas TX 1998, Hospice 2003 & 2004, and First Joyful Brush® performance video created 1998

Special Christmas ornament commissioned by Hillary Clinton for The White House tree 1993
Artist featured in The Best of Silk Painting ed. Tuckman & Janas, North Light Books 1997
Demonstrations at the Lincoln Center Art Festival, NYC 1994-5-6; PBS-TV live performances 2000-2007; Beijing National TV 1993 & 2001, Jiang Yin TV 2006; NBC-TV news interview, NYC 1995; Joy Philbin interview and demonstration for Haven (CBS-TV) 1996; artist featured painting in Jay Leno TV commercial 1994; FOX-TV Morning News interview & demonstration, NYC 1998

Ms. Lloyd-Davies is also an accomplished singer and puppeteer and has performed as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Buffalo Symphony and the Long Island Symphony. She has appeared on radio and television in the U.S., China and Britain and has written articles for The New York Post, Ad Astra Magazine, The Traveller and East-West Journal in the U.S., and The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Aberdeen Press & Journal and She Magazine in Britain.

More than thirty years ago on what then seemed like a whim, I enrolled in a Brush Painting workshop. Faced with the immediacy of just brush, black ink and rice paper, it was love at first stroke. This was fortunate since my enthusiasm kept me working at it even though my first efforts were like any beginner's - weak, uncontrolled squiggles interspersed with heavy splotches of black ink.

The philosopher Joseph Campbell speaks of "following one's bliss". Now, when I paint, I am nourished by what appears on the paper, as though the beautiful object takes on a life of its own and bestows a blessing on me, even though I created it. I believe that what I am doing is giving form to "chi" or life force. Is this "chi" my spirit, the expression of my passion? Or am I simply the channel through which it manifests? Clearly, who I am colors the image, but when a dancing flower or a "bird with attitude" pops out of my brush it contains its own, unique essence.

Hand-in-hand with the "chi" or spirit in Chinese Brush Painting is "yun", the training or practice of the melody. No amount of personal passion will produce a successful painting if the discipline of the strokes is not there, any more than the pianist can play a Chopin waltz without hours of scales. After decades of study, I have probably painted enough bamboo leaves to encircle the globe, yet I still "warm up" before a big painting, practising strokes, playing with my brush, sometimes painting in the air above the paper.

Creating a painting in front of an audience is particularly exciting. Since there is no pre-sketching on the rice paper and no erasing the ink stroke once it is made, the performance has to be right the first time - no second chances, no room for error. Somehow, the energy of the people watching is woven into the performance and the painting becomes an expression of our combined "chi".

So who is the viewer, and who the painter? I invite you to share in the spirit of the images themselves, born of passion and discipline, "chi" and "yun", created in a time-honored medium that still speaks directly to the modern heart and soul. May it bring you joy.