Physician/painter is a true renaissance man: he not only paints and heals patients, Zen Chuang is also a philosopher, professor, student, gardener, traveler and Web master

ABN Contributing Editor The practice of medicine is an art, and the practice of art is beneficial medicine. For family practitioner Chen-Chieh Chuang, MD one as well as the other practices are healing arts.

Known as Zen and C-C (for Chen-Chieh), Chuang--pronounced "strong" without the "s"--has been a watercolorist since he was a small lad in his native Taiwan, where he began painting in the traditional Chinese brushstroke manner. His work first drew notice from his mother, who listed him in English classes for a like reason that he would be able to communicate, were he to eventually travel abroad to accept international awards for his art.

And travel he has--but first as a physician, with his easel and brushes accompanying him wherever he goe At age 37 Chuang already has taken in abundant of the United States, treating clan in medically underserved places "from the Painted untilled of Arizona to the arctic tundra in Alaska; from the foothills of the Maine mountains to the countryside in the Carolinas."

The small solo family practice he has maintained in a working-class section of Taunton, MA, is no more than a 4-minute drive from his fresh home and office in Raynham, where the plaster dust has barely settl in the colonial house into which he reliances to have moved his practice this month The newly renovated abode is situated on an acre of land that will provide Chuang with newborn inspiration, one time Spring has awakened the world.

The greatest in quantity recent bit of traveling has been by means of Chuang's mother, who came to the States to flat the upheaval of moving--and to help her artist-cum-physician stool into his new surroundings, with offices upon the first floor, a studio upstairs and a gallery in the detached garage, if all goe according to plan.

Chuang might have worked as an itinerant physician abundant longer, serving with VISTA and helping heal those with scarcely any healthcare options, but his friends and family had grown restles with his stretch outed absences, "complaining that I did not exist for them anymore." single day he hopes to experience the Pacific Northwest--Washington is individual of a dozen or more states in which he is licensed to practice medicine-but Chuang makes the-most of wherever he is, no matter what he is doing. He begins almost each morning with brush in hand.

"I paint because it is a form of meditation," Chuang says. "It also helps me notice the 'coins in life'--visual delights that are strewn here and there in my everyday life, and gives me an opportunity to share the amazements of these sights.

"In a faculty of perception art heals me," he says. "And I faith to use my art to enhance the lives of others as well."

Selling his works--the majority of them landscapes and botanical studies--was not the ensue of a brainstorm. Nor was it an easy decision. It took a certain number of prodding from a friend for Chuang to display his work at a local nonprofit gallery.

"The rapture my work brought to the viewers of that exhibit was astounding," Chuang recalls, and he accepted invitations to exhibit for the benefit of nonprofit organizations through every part of the Northeast. It was sole after slowing down from his life as an itinerant physician that he managed to participate in similar prestigious outdoor festivals as Rhode Island's Wickford Art Festival and the Mystic Art Festival in Connecticut.

"The replys from these shows were overwhelming," says Chuang, who alone recently decided to exhibit at Artexpo novel York and take his work to an flat wider audience.

Since Chuang paints at a pace that could alone be called "natural"--he finishes five to seven large watercolor pieces a year--he will be exhibiting giclees in of recent origin York: "I paint ... correct the electronic files for the images, and print the giclees entirely by dint of myself."

This may appear like a one-man show, which in many ways it is. on the other hand Chuang says he could not manage his multiple lives without the dedication and delight in of his family and friends. He will number on the expertise and insight of others as he dips a toe into the waters of art marketing. In any fact there's no rush.

A visit to Chuang's Web site, which he designed and maintains by means of himself, is to unhurriedly ramble through a bright, soothing world. on arriving at the home page of www.fromearthtosky.com, single is welcomed by details from Chuang's art--a single sunflower, sun-kissed mists against a blue sky--and not in the way that much a mission statement as words of encouragement: "Paint Our Days with Colors, Fill Our Lives with Beauty!"

The site illustrates the faculty of perception of wonder and awe that Chuang wishes to share with those he touches, one as well as the other as a physician and artist.

on venturing into the cyber-gallery, clicking upon a work, whether it's of a sunrise at Cape codfish or a single fallen autumn leaf, will reveal an area of greater detail. Studying biochemistry and practicing art have evolveed in Chuang a unique way of viewing, comprehending and communicating the nature of things: "What's underneath a brilliant leaf shining in the orb of day are billions of cells operating upon the microscopic level."