Though native to the Netherlands, Caroline Mars has been largely influenced by her studies in China and Japan—a 10-year creative odyssey and cross-pollination of Chinese painting, Ikebana and washipaper. Guided by the five-element theory that informs Asian aesthetics and healing modalities, Mars tempers the clutter and stress of modern life with minimalist composition and simple forms. Conveying an attitude of humility and affinity with nature through primitive shapes and organic motifs, Mars's acrylic paintings and mixed media works are rooted in antiquity, yet unmistakably contemporary. Depicting the energies of water, metal, wood, earth and fire as strikingly symbolic subjects of contemplation, Mars explores the notion of art as meditative tool and environmental equalizer. In parting tranquility or charging spaces with vitality, these works embody the universal longing of cultivated individuals to escape the domestic, workaday world to commune with nature.