Chen Chi-Hsiang Solo Exhibition "Mirror Flowers, Water Moon"

The Taipei Dongjia Gallery “Mirror Flowers, Water Moon” solo exhibition advertisement in Jin Art magazine. Chen Chi-Hsiang’s 2009 “Mirror Flowers, Water Moon” solo exhibition ran from April 6 to May 2 at Taipei Dongjia Gallery. Born in 1956, Chen is a Taiwanese artist and art critic living in Paris. He has quietly cultivated his creative garden while being well-known for contemporary art criticism. “Mirror flowers, water moon” metaphorically describes the illusory nature of things, like flowers in a mirror or the moon reflected in water. From the changes in nature and worldly affairs to introspection on life itself, everything evolves and dissipates naturally. The idiom “mirror flowers, water moon; floating life like a dream” mirrors human existence, reminding us how to see through phenomena to reveal essence amidst various situations. Art, too, is a clear mirror reflecting the creator’s state of mind. Life itself is a pristine painting; within its emptiness, it allows people to paint freely. Like a mirror, it constantly reflects life’s states, as creation projects life experiences, mirroring perception and understanding.

Following the “Observing the Mind, Surveying the Realm” series of images, the “Mirror Flowers, Water Moon” painting series draws inspiration from the 2005 “Non-Mental Image” works. This represents years of observing change calmly, witnessing the mirror-like bottom of life. It attempts to reveal deep inner consciousness through exploration of external matter, highlighting ubiquitous substance and elusive emptiness within material and phenomenal worlds, thereby verifying the essence and consciousness of existence here and now. This trial moves from mental images to non-mental images, starting from nature to witness the supernatural, from matter to spirit, from the visible to the invisible, and from language to the perception and comprehension of imagery.

Viewing objects is like viewing essence; life is nature. The external is an extension of the internal, or more precisely, they share the same body without boundaries, like shadows following objects. Time wraps around space, and space itself is time. Substance combines with emptiness; truth has no form yet encompasses all. Amidst this vast, ever-changing universe, one consciously observes silently, or uses life’s unchanging nature to capture fragments of reality as eternal microcosms of existence, seeking nothing outside, experiencing art naturally as the manifestation of life’s ontology.

The “Mirror Flowers, Water Moon” series is presented in dialogue, united like left and right palms, possessing similarity akin to twin brothers meeting joyfully. They can stand independently yet complement each other to achieve intimate interaction, with similarity becoming the symbol of this series. Transitioning from image to painting, the goal is clearly neither image nor painting alone. Rather, it uses image or painting to view realms and observe the mind, or perceive realms through awareness. Through material forms, it evokes deeper consciousness or presents spiritual states of awareness. From these realms, the artist’s heart is observed; by surveying realms, the original face of life is perceived.

This series is composed of familiar small objects from daily life, microscopically viewing the great world through everyday life. It is subtler than imagination, existing between reality and unreality, beyond reality, the seen and unseen, figurative and abstract, cognition and awareness. It attempts to grasp metaphysical realms or highlight serene mental states. These objects are inseparable from their shadows or mirror reflections, like the moon in water or reflections of worldly things. All reality is constructed from yin-yang or opposing elements unified. Under light, objects must have shadows; in mirrors, forms must appear. In these physical phenomena, time follows space, and space constructs time. Phenomena such as painting or images constitute the substance of art, revealing not just the light and shadow of objects but the entirety of things. Poetic imagery highlights what is seen and unseen in painting, as well as the artistic conception and imaginative space beyond objects.

Paris, March 2, 2009. For detailed works, please refer to the “Chen Chi-Hsiang” section.