相見歡 春紅

La Serre

Oil, acrylic, ballast, sand, cement, ash, bronze and iron rust on canvas

120 x 160cm, 2022-23

林花謝了春紅，太匆匆。無奈朝來寒雨晚來風。

胭脂淚，相留醉，幾時重。自是人生長恨水長東。

On ‘Hortus Conclusus 寓形於兩間’

What does “Hortus Conclucus” mean? 

In Latin, it literally means “enclosed garden”. In Medieval and Renaissance art and literature, “hortus conclusus” is both an emblematic attribute and a title associated with the Virgin Mary – a virgin depends on no earthly male, she is the numinous conceiver, the divine author of life, father and mother in one – the immaculate conception. 

Why call this painting series “Hortus Conclusus”?

Certainly, the symbolic meaning of “conceiver and creator” naturally appeals to an artist. However, there is another layer of symbolism in the “enclosed garden” — that of innocence and protection. Consider Juliet’s garden in Romeo and Juliet, and the Grand View Garden in The Dream of the Red Chamber (《紅樓夢》中的大觀園), where within, fragile young love can flourish and grow, shielded from the death and destruction outside. At that time, I was bored and disillusioned with my life and the loveless material world surrounding me. I yearned for an enclosure where I could freely pursue the spiritual — Art, i.e. love. I sought a boundary to separate the distractions of what I perceived as the loveless external world, allowing space and protection for my inner spirit — love — to thrive. Interestingly, the root meaning of the word “paradise” is also “enclosed garden”.

In hindsight, I believe the catalyst for my sudden foray into painting at age 27 and my journey to become an artist began with the schism between the external and internal, the loveless and love, life and art. Through art, I aspire to reconcile these opposites and find a transcendent unity.

I see ‘Hortus Conclusus’ as my odyssey as a modern individual in search of a soul. Much like Goethe depicted his lifelong quest in Faust, or Odysseus embarked on his journey homeward, this series tells my spiritual adventures. In the words of Joyce from Ulysses, “The longest way round is the shortest way home.” Art, I believe, is a passion towards the whole.

What are these paintings about?

The paintings in this series encompass a wide range of subjects, themes, and conceptual references. However, what attracts me to each of these paintings are two fundamental aspects of existence: boundary and duality.

Within everything, there exists its opposite, while boundaries serve to differentiate one thing from another. Without boundaries, nothing can truly exist. Through separation and isolation, we are able to differentiate, comprehend, and construct the world we inhabit.

My works play with the tension and transition between opposing elements: life and death, creation and destruction, beauty and cruelty, spirit and matter, poiesis and mimesis, masculine and feminine, light and shadow, order and chaos, good and evil, truth and lie, ideal and real, individual and collective, internal and external, micro and macro, eternal and ephemeral, and more. I would call these antitheses and their enantiodromian disposition my “subject matter”. Hence, rather than directly translating ‘Hortus Conclusus’, I have given this series the Chinese title ‘寓形於兩間’ – from a Taoist text, literally meaning “taking shape in between the two”.

A chapter from Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain comes to mind, to summarise the long conversation between Dr. Hofrat Behrens and his patient Hans Castorp:

“What is death?”

“Oxidation.”

“What is life?”

“Oxidation.”

Life is dying.