Remembrance of Realms Past
2018
Referencing traditional Chinese 'shan shuǐ’ painting and continuing the visual allegory of Requiem for the Present Eternal (2017) and Substitute for Sorrow (2017), works in this series become simulacra for scenic and landscape representations of the mind. Here, the image of the mountain (long seen as sacred places in China, which were viewed as the homes of immortals) with allusive references to Guilin (its name meaning "Forest of Sweet Osmanthus"), or 'Gongshi' (Chinese scholar's rocks) - become core compositional components.
Calligraphic ink on Xuan paper (with its form sculpted) atop a pale blue Poly Film background and beneath linear plexiglas: this construct introduces the viewer to an alternative illustration to ink wash painting by fusing classical techniques and new, native styles and foreign. Remembrance of Realms Past explores the boundaries which envelop the relationship between the artist's hand and the attempt to instantiate the natural world, where depictions of nature are not presented as mere representations of the external world but rather the ideology of nature.
These works become a window to an imagined space rather than as a sculptural / pictorial element. From this space, the landscape of each painting - coaxing from this organic foundation the development of a myriad of ornamental forms - coalesce into compositions that appear as an object for the viewer's mind, rather than as an open window for the viewer's eye.