Yang Chiu-Hsiang: A Soul Playing Between Dreams

Everything is like a first dream. Everything is like waking from a dream. All of it... is merely... consciousness shuttling between reality and illusion.

Text and images / Chen Chi-Hsiang

Preface: "Life is a dream; everything seems like a dream. To dream is nothing but dreaming; what is dreamed is even more so." Floating life resembles a dream. With eyes closed, it is a dream; with eyes open, it is also a dream. Life wanders in and out of dreams, resembling a grand dream. All of this... is merely existence. The soul shuttles through the universe's void and substance, illusion and extinction, interior and exterior, time and space, as well as reality and imagination. Under various states where the realm arises from the mind and meaning shifts with the realm, driven by the flow of consciousness and the subconscious, one perceives and senses situations of illusory extinction and formation, constructing the reality of personal existence. As stated in the New Age Seth Book: "Everyone creates their own reality; similarly, this world creates its own reality, without exception."

Yang Chiu-Hsiang is a person whose life appears ordinary yet whose thoughts are independent and unconventional. She is not limited, enjoying free-floating reveries and meditation, living a seemingly inactive yet active life of quiet contemplation and dynamic engagement. Immersed in the revelations of Seth’s thought—"You create your reality, and so does the world. All things are one; you are the center of the universe"—she freely wanders in and out of dreams within her consciousness and subconscious, galloping through an extraordinary imaginative space, entering the unknown magic and profundity, attempting to reach the mysterious realms of the soul. Understanding that because the soul plays between dreams, she wishes to elucidate the essence of existence. In her "Tracing Back to the Source - Dream" series, she writes: "Floating life resembles a dream? If so, then! Is the universe a woven dream? Woven dreams everywhere, at all times. The woven dreams are the earth and all things. Human affairs. Flowers that are not flowers. Mist that is not mist—yesterday, today, and tomorrow."

Is an artist a metaphysical synonym or an ordinary noun? Human existence itself is the mystery of the universe, responding to the plain activities of daily life, intending to pursue quality of life and improve conditions of existence. Creativity is inevitably the stimulant and energy of life. All actions and practices in daily life derived from thinking and self-awareness can be broadly termed creation. The endless energy of humanity is released through creative causes and conditions. Therefore, creation holds no magic; it is a reflection of human needs and instincts for existence. Following German artist Joseph Beuys’ famous argument that "everyone is an artist," anyone can exert creativity in various social roles based on their abilities. This vital creative force of existence can be seen as the duty and capability of art in plain life. Just as Beuys’ "expanded concept of art" affirms artistic creative energy, it can shape society and people.

In today’s open society, artistic creation is broad and extensive, with unprecedented diversity and variety. Art has never necessarily been the exclusive domain of formal training, nor does one need to call oneself an artist. Creative power hides in every corner of society and in everyone’s existence, fully exerted and practiced according to individual conditions and preferences. Although creative forms differ, the significance of creativity is similar.

Artist—who is she? Yang Chiu-Hsiang (born 1965 in Dongshan, Tainan) is a creator who received no formal art education and does not identify herself as an artist. She highly values personal free thinking and physical-spiritual cultivation, delving into comprehensive life states, experiencing and exploring from multiple angles. Her sincerity toward life’s existence makes her a practitioner of New Age life exploration. Yang Chiu-Hsiang is multi-talented. Besides her familiar sculptural art creation, she excels in culinary arts, gardening, floral design, and other aspects of life. Based on "universal compassion, unity of life," she manifests everywhere in her home living space, highlighting her extraordinary temperament and the radiance of life, attempting to verify ineffable existential mysteries.

Those who know her are deeply attracted by her indescribable texture and feeling. Those fortunate enough to enter her warm Fengshan Yunshui Studio cannot help but admire her courtyard, which resembles a peach blossom spring beyond the world: lush and dense, colorful and brilliant, with shimmering water reflections and murmuring sounds. Simple and natural home decorations and casual floral arrangements ensure that fragrant fresh flowers and verdant plant ornaments are always present. Quiet and leisurely, it emits a bewitching natural beauty and spiritual aura. Every flower, grass, tree, scene, and object here is the result of her handmade crafting and careful care, embodying her abundant vitality and persistence in practicing the beauty of life.

Fengshan Yunshui Studio was once the most eye-catching restaurant in Chiayi City. It was the most vibrant space for Zhuluo Mountain cultural activities and the favorite gathering place for local art circle friends, filled with humanistic atmosphere. It held regular monthly art exhibitions, with Yang Chiu-Hsiang serving as the guardian soul figure bridging dining and art. Fengshan Yunshui was famous for its creative cuisine, featuring dazzling original dishes and unique flavors of top quality. Under the sensitive and careful management of the owner-artist, it attracted many gourmets, prospering and enjoying a momentary peak.

For Yang Chiu-Hsiang, creation is a release of energy. She says, "It is as natural as anything else. 'Just like the recent century’s great disaster—the Japanese nuclear explosion, my path of artistic creation was not accidental.'" Yang Chiu-Hsiang opens her inner description with light words but heavy meaning. She recalls: "Even in childhood, I developed inexplicable and excited preferences for art, literature, and philosophy. Although I could not study what I loved during my schooling, I never drifted away from what I loved, directly exploring, self-studying, and practicing in life."

In 1995, she entered the studio of Chiayi sculptor Ou Chih-Cheng to learn the craft. After only about a month, her teacher told her not to waste time anymore, affirming herself directly. Thus, she boldly stepped onto the point of no return in sculptural creation. The artist wrote: "For life, art is absolute, but not the only thing. For the soul, life is absolute, but not the only thing. For consciousness, the soul is inevitable, but not existence."

Crossing the Reverie Series of Masters: Yang Chiu-Hsiang entered the profundity of sculptural art starting from the inspiration of two modernist masters. Under sensibility, instinct, and intuition, she transformed the concise linear nude paintings of Matisse and Chang Yu into three-dimensional sculptures using subjective consciousness. Converting the linear nature of flat painting into vertical sculptural forms, she turned metaphysical image symbols into living sculptural bodies. She said: "Matisse’s works, the master of Fauvism, are among my most favorites. Starting from the lines of Matisse’s female nude paintings, I began the 'Reverie of Matisse' series." Works such as the solid volume of "Reverie of Matisse I" (1996) and the energetic, spatial "Reverie of Matisse II" (2001), or the linear relief "Reverie of Chang Yu" (2001) and the uniquely shaped reclining figure with raised thighs "Reverie of Chang Yu - Exclamation Mark" (2007), are all figurative nudes full of modernist signs, exaggerated body language, especially thick hips and thighs, symbolizing women’s energy and productivity. Within the bold lines lies a soft, flowing power.

Matisse believed "drawing depends on linear modeling or sculpture." However, Yang Chiu-Hsiang activates linear drawing modeling through sculpture. Precisely because she is not formally trained, her sculptural works appear more unique. As a female creator, the female body naturally became her focus and subject matter. With her delicacy and sensitivity, she thoroughly grasps the extraordinary characteristics and soul of women.

The Black Hole of Life - Nightmares: The journey of life is elusive under vast space-time. Everything operates in flux and extinction, described as "Heaven’s way moves constantly; all dharmas are impermanent." Life; everything, is like a first dream, everything is like waking from a dream. Walking through the world in and out of dreams, it sparks life’s energy and leaves indelible mental marks. Art is the spokesperson of the era and the self’s soul. Art is the outlet for life’s energy. Art is actually the expression closest to humans’ truest feelings. It can fill the regrets and deficiencies of those with spiritual wounds, constructing an internal alienated space for normal people. "Artistic creation is therapy." People can express imagination and vent emotions through artistic creation to achieve communication.

Due to various factors encountered in work and life, she once experienced heavy physical and mental pressure, depression, anxiety, and panic. Over months, she unknowingly fell into the black hole of her life, suffering spiritual torment, while her physical health declined. Thus, in 2006, Fengshan Yunshui Restaurant and its affiliated cultural activities came to a halt under these circumstances. While experiencing life’s torment and the tests and endurance of existence, for Yang Chiu-Hsiang, it was akin to entering a sleepless nightmare. Like a soul restless between dreams: the two most representative oil paintings "Water Lilies" (one yellow, one white) (2005-06), with weak colors and forms, show a bunch of dying water lilies slumping in a transparent vase, purely a portrayal of her current state of mind. The headless and armless nude acrylic painting "Wandering Soul" (2005-06) is no exception; the plump body emits a sense of mania and unease, allowing one to empathetically imagine the huge pressure hidden in the author’s body. Additionally, the two sculptures "Helplessness" and "Still Graceful" (2007) can both be interpreted as physical and mental states and life situations under the black hole. Art not only relieves the creator’s physical and mental pressure but transforms into energy through art, which Jung called "psychic energy," achieving a process of self-healing. During this period, artistic creation was her greatest comfort and outlet for life’s energy. Life is not endowed to us in ready-made forms; we must use our own strength to shape it. After a long period of life’s tests, the strong-willed Yang Chiu-Hsiang also woke up from the nightmare, realizing life’s resilience and endurance, and began searching for the profundity of existence, stepping into the exploration of the mind.

Exploring the Origin of Life - "Tracing Back to the Source" Series: In recent years, Yang Chiu-Hsiang has secluded herself in the tropical rainforest of Fengshan Yunshui, living a meditative, quiet, and non-contentious life, immersed in the New Age movement’s Seth life philosophy, exploring the profundity of existence. Through daily life practice and realization, she became a seeker of Seth’s path. The "Tracing Back to the Source - Dream" series represents her mature work display, entering the unknown fields of life. French writer Apollinaire wrote: "Unexpected things are new major driving forces." This series has a strong intent to explore the origin of life. The creation originates from the field of immaterial reality, making the works more pure, encompassing cosmic primordial imagery and the primal state of life, shuttling between first dreams and waking, consciousness and subconscious, reality and imagination, metaphor and sign, and love and care.

In the "Tracing Back to the Source" series, Yang Chiu-Hsiang weaves another truth of her own life—a "dream." She says, "Thus, I see, hear, and know. In the universe, dreams serve as the source of all things, marking the beginning of my personal search for life’s essence. I observe that in the external environment, almost all sources of life look similar, essentially oval or exclamation mark shapes. From human bodies to plant seeds, animal sperm to plant stamens, they are almost identical. The creation of the universe is actually not that complex. Dreams—this series of playful improvisational works—is an exclamation mark enclosing another exclamation mark, one after another. This means the source of all things gave birth to the source of life, and the source of life continuously produces exclamation marks. This world is composed of countless exclamation marks." Thus, the cosmic primordial prototype "Source of Dreams" was born: a round shape with a subtle hole underneath (visible only through the bottom mirror). That small hole connects to all primordial "dreams." "Flower of Dreams" resembles a seed sprouting, symbolizing the activity of dreams, beginning the endless cycle of all things.

Full of life’s primal drive and existential energy, "Dream of Birth (Female)" and "Dream of Birth (Male)"—the former is female labia, an exclamation mark enclosing another exclamation mark; the latter is a vigorous male penis. Only through the yin and yang poles can Taiji be born, meaning the life source of all things. "Dream of Love" depicts a couple embracing in deep passion. All things have love; heterosexual love symbolizes life’s extraordinary energy, forming the endless cycle of the Earth and universe. "Dream of Illusion" shows a warmly reclining female body, full of soft power. The artist writes: "Life always advances on a journey of seeking. No matter how many people walked with you or brushed past you on the journey, the most intimate companion is still yourself." "Voyage of Consciousness," through leaves and water droplets on the round body, is quite abstract, manifesting the soul shuttling through the space-time of the universe’s void and substance, illusion and extinction: "Everything is like a first dream, everything is like waking from a dream. All of it... is merely... consciousness shuttling between reality and illusion." Intending to trace back to the source of life’s origin through "dreams," penetrating every state of life, she says: "You and I inside and outside of space-time are all woven 'dreams.' After tracing back to the source, thus; I can stand outside of 'dreams' to reweave 'myself,' continuing the next life journey. When I am kneading this round shape, my universe lies between my palms." However, Zhuangzi in the Qi Wu Lun expresses through fable that "thinking is the only great dream."