In terms of technique, “zongfeng” (which literally means “the centred tip”) is at the heart of “writing”.
“Zongfeng” moves from the mind, rather than the tip of the brush. In other words, the crux of zongfeng is the grasp of “Dao”, rather than the use of the “tool”.
In terms of concept, “writing” suggests the expression and representation of a kind of script, symbol or totem, which is the creation of “signs of civilization”.
To write, again and again, is to contribute to the development of civilization.
Through “writing”, I seek to understand the cultures I have been exposed to, and to give my effort to development of civilization through the act of art.
Yet I have come to realised one thing: the more civilized the world becomes, the greater the conflicts it contains.
Is “conflict” a kind of “manifestation of civilization”, or “unmasking of savageness”?
The two are akin to a form and its shadow, like “light” and “shadow”.
For instance, the meeting of East and West is neither pure romance nor perfection. On the contrary, there exists a certain degree of opposition, a relative harmony, between the two.
That is why “conflict” and “harmony” are at the heart of my works. They are unavoidable questions that our society and our world face.
Through my works, I seek to highlight or raise certain ideas, some facts and truths that we cannot look away from. Yet they are not answers, since there is no absolute answer to anything in the real world.
What we call answers arise and change for each person, in echoes of their own perception.
The Western notion of harmony is similar to, yet different from the Eastern concept of “the unison of the world and the self”. I think there is a great deal of inevitability and coincidence between the two.
It is precisely this convergence between inevitability and coincidence that gives birth to the beauty of the world. As Laozisays, “All things embody yang within yin, as the two collide and merge.”
My works employ materials that I am familiar with, while on a quest for coincidence. That is because “familiarity” in itself is both “a thinking trap” and “an opening for enlightenment” (that is, it possesses an essential duality). The collision between technique and material is an exploration of a relative balance.
In aesthetic terms, we can call it “the inter-relations between emptiness and solidness”. Yet in the context of contemporaneity, it can be interpreted as “an exploration of the relationship between conflict and harmony”.
What is embodied in my brushwork, lines and composition? Where is it heading?
I think it is the “present”, and it is heading towards the “future”.
What is the “present”?
The present is the “grasp” of “a fleeting thought”; it is the relationship between “light” and “shadow”.
As for the “future”, do not ask me about it. If you wish to know about the “future”, only the “future” knows what “future” it will bring.
