This research explores form and the painting traditions in both Western and Chinese cultures. It uses the motifs of the Chinese garden and the Western cathedral to examine the possibilities of integrating contrasting approaches and theories. Form in the Chinese context refers to transformation, whereas form in the Western context emphasises composition or arrangement. The great paintings in China focus on the generation of an invisible breath-energy, vitality, and dynamism by means of the transformation of two polarities of yin and yang. While in the Western context the understanding of form, especially the dominant modernism formalism, the focus is on the autonomous aesthetic values on a surface plane, reflected in colour, composition and the arrangement of different pictorial elements. In the West the direct connection with emotion and arousing spirituality is often achieved through departing from external references to the world. This research presents the possibilities of integrating Western practices with Chinese traditions to create artworks that are sensitive to Chinese and Western theories and concepts of form. This practice-led research is also concerned with how form can evoke the spiritual. Through the depiction of traditional Chinese gardens and Western cathedrals, and drawing upon Chinese and Western theories, the project values the autonomous aesthetic properties that are closely and better connected to spirituality. This project reflects upon how form and the use of colour, composition and perspective can create a sense of the spiritual.