Ma Yanling doesn't want to draw too much attention to the personalities whom she has portrayed in her works. To her, their lives are of no particular significance.  She just uses their faces to bring back collective memories.

Like flowing water, life drifts by us casually and continuously and there are moments in life that people with the same interest share. Ma strives, in her works, to re-ignite those certain moments with faces of some stellar figures of the last century to help her in preserving time.

In her artist's statement, Ma said, "I use the line drawing technique of classical Chinese painting to lay a thin veil over those faces, very much similar to the effect of obscurity that time leaves on memories. The tip of my painting brush, thus, becomes the ticking hand on the face of the clock. With each and every stroke of the brush, I painstakingly delineate each and every line weaving out a net of time. This net is used to capture those certain sparks of beauty at their prime."

Mr. Li Xianting, the godfather of Chinese Contemporary Art said of Ma's works, "those intricate and repetitive grids on her works are not to highlight visual effects, Ma Yanling treasures the whole progression of depiction more. What's more crucial to her is the drawing process. It is life itself that flows steadily like water…. throughout the uncomplicated yet repetitive procedure, each and every line and each and every lattice on her works are in fact each and every moment in life, day after day, year after year, replicating, repeating yet eventually all drifting away. What she brings forward is not a conceptual idea but a personal experience of life."

The imageries on the exhibits in Timeless defy any wear-down in memories. They stay forever fresh as they are frozen at the prime of their lives.Timeless exhibition opens on December 1st, 2010 and runs until December 23rd. 

Artist will be present in the Opening Reception: December 1st, 2010 (Wednesday), 6pm to 8pm.