Opening Reception: Dec 6 2008 (Sat) 3pm
Surpass the Concentration, Return to the Loneliness
I always believe that personal experience and childhood memories play an important role in any creative project and they are the key elements in making a project unique. “Home” has always had a strong influence in my art projects. I grew up in a family that raises ducks and I had to get up at 4AM every morning to pick between 5,000 and 8,000 eggs per day. Early morning is the best time to pick eggs because that’s when they are freshly laid. If it was delayed, the eggs would be dirty and would not sell for good price. I have been picking eggs for the last 10 years, during which, I have learned to be more patient; subconsciously my soul has found its home by relying on this repetitive task.
The creativity of “Sand and Rocks Series” reflects the environment of my home. Indeed, there is no surprise. When I left my home to get a college education, all of a sudden, I didn’t have to do the egg picking work that I had been doing for so many years. Therefore my soul has found its new home to my new project, the “Sand and rocks Series”. In applying the technique of pointillism, its repetitive action, much like picking duck eggs, allows me to regain the feeling of calm and concentration. It allows me to see my inner self. Though my hand, by dotting and tracing every spot on the canvas, I surpassed my soul. Surpassing is a goal in art. It is like climbing the peak of a mountain. After you complete the challenge, you start again with another one. Although art is not a physical challenge, it is a spiritual challenge.
Being creative is an addiction that makes you feel a sense of ‘high’. When you are ‘high’, you feel passionate about your art work. The process of pointillism immediately puts me in a calm and quiet mood. I believe that art is a sort of self-therapy for the mind and soul. I have personally experienced the change that creativity has instilled in me during each cycle of my development. The longer it lasts, the more patient I become in surpassing my mind and soul to further excel. Every time I complete a piece of art, I feel energized. It is a great feeling and concept for my point of view toward creativity.
When I am feeling lonely, I become even closer to the art itself. I believe there are two types of creativity, extroversion and introversion, of which I prefer the later one. Being introverted allows me to explore my inner self. When there’s distance between people, the lonely soul tends to better understand the inner self. I am not talking about the physical loneliness, but more of a spiritual cleansing. It is a pure condition of the mind that I call concentration. The meaning of concentration is similar to ‘Zen’, but I do not want to categorize it with religious ideas, rather it’s a self-therapy for the mind and soul. When using pointillism in the ‘Sand and Rocks series’, it requires a lot of concentration in creating all the dots next to each other and the mind and soul must be in the calmest condition. It is like ‘Nieh-Pan’ in Buddhism.
The condition of ‘Nieh-Pan’ requires constant training of oneself to achieve calmness of the mind. It has similar meaning to my creative condition. Only when the mind and soul are calm can you concentrate on what you are working. It makes my creativity expand to its fullest. Since beginning my current project, all the processes pile up and I still keep exploring my creativity, it is like a never ending boundary. Every single dot I draw during pointillism is a trace of my creation. It is a seed for the creativity that goes on and expands to different levels. Each time I go a step further, I look back and think about what I have done and realize that this is how I find home for my soul.
To me, art is an adventure in life. You must be adventurous to be able to find its soul deep inside. Sai-Sang once said, “To me, art is just an adventure in life. Everything you see in the image, including every stroke, it’s not just colors or techniques, but it’s the life adventure that belongs to me.” Creativity is a continuum of ‘being moved’ in my opinion. It carries on the torch of ‘once being together’ which touches people’s heart and makes us feel satisfied. It is hard to define ‘being moved’, therefore, I’ve been searching for its definition, and I have tried to find a way to present the feeling through topics around my environment. My thoughts are expressed through my painting. My current projects focus on those things familiar in my life and it maintains the concept that once my soul finds its truth, my paining will present a philosophy.
Creativity is an exploration of inner self, and it shows the existence of life. By observing and comparing nature and culture, and evaluating complex thoughts, one can see the true self during his or her life journey. Artists usually obtain their inspiration from observing life around them then train themselves through life experience to feel and open up to a more valuable concept of life through their art.
