FORSYTHIA
In March, I went to see the forsythia bushes several times in Central Park to check if their buds have begun to swell. One of the first shrubs to bloom in the spring, if left alone, it may colonize nearby area as its weeping branches touch the ground and develop roots.
As I was gazing at the germinating buds on dormant branches in the bright sun light, it felt as if I stare long enough, I could see the eternal life force morphing. But after an initial look, there wasn't any more to see but the ephemeral movement of my own thoughts.
After a few days, I went there agin and saw the pointy yellow buds swollen ripping off its skin and opening, as if finally letting out a sigh after a long oppresive winter. Forsythias were just standing there in exquisite silence on a different realm.
In a Confucian world where I grew up, ink-brush paintings with personal notes on them were hung in the main rooms of houses and public halls. Seeing the picture and hearing the whispers of written words went on simultaneously.
Those ink-brush works of old Asia still speak to me so palpably in a museum showcase on moth-eaten old scrolls. Reading handwritten words is an intimate transaction through the wet brush lines displaying the author’s breaths and nerve-endings so nakedly. I always marvel at such a magical sense of connection with another mortal who took a breath thousands of years before me as if I am standing next to him sharing his tender emotions.
The reason why such works still touch us, I believe, is not because they are, or were new or profound, but because they convey author's sensory experiences and his passing emotions as a mortal in the Nature.
They still stir deeper emotions of a common man within us living in the 21st Century spending much of our waking hours in cyber space.
Such palpable sense of connection, however brief it may be, bring me a joy and it carries me through the day. It cuts through the opacity that surrounds me especially in our digital time of hyper-connections with little embodied awareness.
About two dozen photographs in this series are mounted on gessoed wood boards and I erased the forsythia branches' background with gray paint. I saw a perpetual tug of war between the erazing, forgetful winter gray and the germinating yellow buds emerging. My passing thoughts seemed like a veil over my eyes that want to see.
As I was gazing at the germinating buds on dormant branches in the bright sun light, it felt as if I stare long enough, I could see the eternal life force morphing. But after an initial look, there wasn't any more to see but the ephemeral movement of my own thoughts.
After a few days, I went there agin and saw the pointy yellow buds swollen ripping off its skin and opening, as if finally letting out a sigh after a long oppresive winter. Forsythias were just standing there in exquisite silence on a different realm.
In a Confucian world where I grew up, ink-brush paintings with personal notes on them were hung in the main rooms of houses and public halls. Seeing the picture and hearing the whispers of written words went on simultaneously.
Those ink-brush works of old Asia still speak to me so palpably in a museum showcase on moth-eaten old scrolls. Reading handwritten words is an intimate transaction through the wet brush lines displaying the author’s breaths and nerve-endings so nakedly. I always marvel at such a magical sense of connection with another mortal who took a breath thousands of years before me as if I am standing next to him sharing his tender emotions.
The reason why such works still touch us, I believe, is not because they are, or were new or profound, but because they convey author's sensory experiences and his passing emotions as a mortal in the Nature.
They still stir deeper emotions of a common man within us living in the 21st Century spending much of our waking hours in cyber space.
Such palpable sense of connection, however brief it may be, bring me a joy and it carries me through the day. It cuts through the opacity that surrounds me especially in our digital time of hyper-connections with little embodied awareness.
About two dozen photographs in this series are mounted on gessoed wood boards and I erased the forsythia branches' background with gray paint. I saw a perpetual tug of war between the erazing, forgetful winter gray and the germinating yellow buds emerging. My passing thoughts seemed like a veil over my eyes that want to see.
