Meditation in Contemporary Landscape -at Towson

Kay H. Lin(UL), YoYo Xiao(M), In-Soon Shin(UR)
Takayo Seto(ML), Cui Fei(MR)
Kit Keung Keng(LL), ChinChih Yang(LR)

Greetings!

Meditation in Contemporary Landscape

Saturday, February 12-March 19, 2011

Towson University, State University of Maryland

Center for the Arts, Asian Arts Gallery

Curated by: Luchia Meihua Lee

Artist Remarks and Opening Reception:

Saturday, February 12, 2-4 p.m.

The exhibition features the work of seven U.S. based artists of Asian heritage, including Cui Fei, Kay H. Lin, Kit-Keung Kan, Takayo Seto, In-Soon Shin, YoYo Xiao and Chin Chih Yang. The artists work in a multitude of media: painting, photography, installation, digital and video arts to capture the spirit of landscape in a contemporary context in attempt to draw viewers into re-thinking the natural world that we take for granted, and evoke an awareness of the relationship between nature and humans.

Lecture: The Living Arts of Tao Te Ching

Sunday, February 27, 3 p.m.

Center for the Arts Lecture Hall

Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese classic and second most translated book in the world after the Bible, is the primary philosophical foundation of Chinese Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Chinese artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, gardeners, and martial artists have used Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration and guidance. James Tu, a Taomaster, will introduce the primary concepts in Tao Te Ching and its timeless and practical wisdoms that have brought joy, creativity and fulfillment to countless souls. A presentation of music on Chinese zither will follow the lecture.

Gallery hours: Mon-Fri. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday 1-4 p.m.

Information: 410-704-2807, www.towson.edu/asianarts

This program is supported by AA&CC members, McCormick & Co.,
the Ro and Marius P. Johnson Legacy Charitable Trust, and through grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Baltimore County Commission on Arts & Sciences

The rich tapestry of ancient Asian culture was formed by these three schools of thoughts, which evolved separately in different regions of the continent - Taoism in China; Buddhism first in India, and then Confucianism in China and then in Korea; Buddhism in Japan; and Confucianism in Korea. Confucius's Analects celebrated the importance of family and society structure, which become the discipline and aim of Korean culture and formed a comprehensive organizing principle for Korean society. In Japan, a branch of Buddhism was transformed into the splendor known as Japanese Zen Buddhism, a living philosophy that is directly reflected in Japanese daily life and practice. Taiwanese have long blended their disparate South Pacific Islander and Han Chinese backgrounds, as well as the numerous colonial influences (Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese) that shaped ordinary life style and led to today's synthetic culture which is a fusion of Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and folk religion. It is worth pointing out that in China, Taoism had the most profound influence on landscape painting and artistic culture, with its concept of the unity of nature, humans, and earth.

Kay H Lin IDY II , 48x72", 2010

Kit-Keung Kan uses traditional Chinese brush and ink to express the rhythms of water landscape painting, but provides a fresh perspective by focusing on a small portion of his nominal subject. He calls to mind, without picturing it, the mountain behind the movement of water.

YoYo Xiao took a picture of environmental desecration - in plain words, trash - and digitally processed it until he arrived at calligraphic strokes which outline a seemingly natural landscape. In other digital work, he generated clouds of smoke curling in the air, some of which etamorphose into human form.

Cui Fei, achieves a delicate beauty by keenly arranging rose thorns into a sensitive and defensive pattern. Her Six Steeds from ZhaoLing mixed media work series is inspired by the story of Chinese Emperor Taizong, who commissioned sculptures of six steeds. Two were stolen and now are on view in the Philadelphia Museum while the remaining four were badly damaged in transit to the Hangzhou Museum. It is the artist's intention to address the general human condition of vulnerability and our inability to control the world - a world where even an emperor's desires can't always be fulfilled.

Korean artist In-Soon Shin is concerned with landscapes of the mind. Her pieces are abstract, yet organic. They are nonrepresentational, yet at the same time are dynamic and easily lend themselves to allusion. They allow you to walk through the forest, where his or her mind takes in patterns and colors.

In-Soon Shin Synergy 1-4, 40 x 27" 2008

Takayo Seto focuses on the essential qualities of spirit and contemplation. Her work demonstrates a quite simplicity, a solid color image into which intrudes a brush stroke from one corner that may be a small branch, bird, or figure. The entire canvas leads you in a tranquil, spiritual world.

Kay H. Lin's poetic paintings contain her written paeans to Nature, thus taking an external perspective on emotion. This is reminiscent of the literati discussing ideas in complete freedom while mingling with Nature. Her work has the impressionist's color of Monet and the Chinese literati's idealization of Nature - all from a contemporary viewpoint.

Chin Chih Yang deconstructed traditional landscape by use of a modern, site-specific installation using recycled aluminum cans and LEDs. Most of the population, after all, lives in urban settings. In this urban landscape, Yang reminds us to pause to meditate in order to survive. Yang transforms his isolated space into an urban mountain and water landscape. He aims to raise awareness by taking action through art events to express his love of Nature, and all human kind.

Takayo Seto, Voyage, 14.5 x 20.5", 2010

This meditation celebrates the long and ever-evolving relationship between nature, landscape, and us. Just as the original harmony between Nature and mankind gives way to alienation, so too the role of landscape is continually being redefined. Nature has never stopped inspiring art and artists, but the expression of that inspiration has radically shifted as artists utilize modern language and idiom. This is more than simply a change in artistic fashion. Contemporary attitudes towards nature are colored by the realization that, for the last few centuries, mankind has been more and more successful at dominating and controlling nature. As Yang points out most directly, this success is now open to serious question.

Luchia Meihua Lee

Curator

Zen Box