Three artists, three works, each piece is a time adventure. Though every work has its own perspective, from life, from history, or from culture, they all share one single goal. Shintaro Miyake, Ye Yong-Qing, and Huang Ming-Chan, as they walk along the tropic of cancer, from Egypt, Vietnam, to Hualien, they will reach where they start. There the apricot blossoms are still in their prime, the things as they were. Inhale the world within their chest, the travelers of universe exhale three different sighs of emotion.
Like a time travel, on the road to Egypt, every step stands for thousand years. All imaginations and realities merge within the legends that have been retold from past to present. Shintaro Miyake uses vivid and intense colors to capture the details of ancient Egyptian life and legends. Between the real and the unreal, totems such as the triangle-faced and long-limb pharaohs, mummies, and camels are all clear symbols for Shintaro Miyake. Every scene relates to other ones closely, past and present mingle together; his road to the unknown dream is wide and full of fantasies. Tracing future in the past, the facts swing joyfully in the floating imagination, this path goes a thousand miles in a blink. The sun is the same, the gods changed. The days are the same, the scenery varies. Culture is within the far and unknown legends; eternity is a mystery that cannot be solved. Shintaro Miyake's road to Egypt is in fact an epic so grand that has successfully presented what cannot be depicted and has complete an impossible task--to connect the past with the present.
For Ye Yong-Qing, wandering is not an unfamiliar term ; maintaining his own speed and distance, he is making his own way. His "migratory-birds" style comes from the daily thoughts and touching moments. Actually, all of us describe this world according to our life around us. The apricot flowers that bloom so red and stretch out from the walls, two random peacocks that fly into the backyard, squares and separated color blocks; poetic phrases and lines; branches in winter, running figures, fallen birds, abandoned cages... Ye Yong-Qing "slow sketches" the traveler's great path, from the passage of tea and horse to the other shore of Pacific Ocean. He grasps fragments and memories from the time that flies, composing a suite that has many dimensions: wide as plateau, august as mountain. With a close-up it could be a song, with a grander view it could be life.
"There you can see the last rice farm. I used to watch the farm changing along with the turning of the seasons. From the seedling to a field which is young and green, and to the grains which are ripe and golden... it is so beautiful." Although the world changes in every breath, the colors of the land are always fascinating. Paces through the earth of Southeast Asia, Huang Ming-Chan's land belongs to his heart where the sun shines upon the field. Every brush he made was so delicate: the golden grains that swing tranquilly between the sky and the earth, as the wind breezes through the farm, the field's waves reflect the sun. The lotus farm downs from the sky and the rice field goes far to the remote, there is life within these farm roads. The time seems to be stolen, the water buffalos are not aware of it, neither the insects, dragonflies and butterflies. As the ferret paint brush ploughs gently through the canvas, time and space turn infinite, every inch of the scene is a vision of memory, tranquil and fair. Autumn's sighs hide among the lotus that are about to wither, the world was once so vivid and lovely... Huang Ming-Chan has kept successfully the beautiful remarks of time's river.
To live means to run forward as much as you can; to leave home is to return home. In the river of life, every self-exile is a spiritual pursue. For the traveler of universe, the sceneries, which run and change through the journey, are important passengers of life; they are pages of epics, psalms that make one constantly recite.
How high can the mountain be, how deep can the water run, how faraway can the road lead, so will be the vastness of the mind. The world is a stage with the sun, the moon, and eight thousands miles. The artist has eventually been exiled in his own creative sceneries. Three travelers from three countries; three cherished secrets of time. How bohemian can life be. I come from one path, but I will go in all directions. |
