Now that I have two paintings of banyan tree roots, I'm left with the task of deciding which one I like better.
The one on the right is methodical, deliberate and manicured. The one on the left is devoid of discrete lines and comprised mostly of shadows.
The right one gives a very detailed accounting of where everything is. There seems to be order in the chaos, if one is interested and motivated to find out. The one on the left just stares at you; you either hate it or love it.
Somehow the left one elicits a stronger emotional response from me. I can't really put a finger on it. Perhaps it's my dark personality. In fact as it stands right now, the more I look at the one on the right, the more anemic it seems.
So now I have to choose a piece for an exhibition and I am still vacillating between the two.
In a way I would really hate to lose the one on the right, if by some weird luck I manage to sell the piece. I want to be able to savor the fruit of my labor a bit longer, especially after the enormous amount of time and effort into it. Something tells me that painting is not fully done yet.
The fact that there are leaves depicted in the painting added another layer of symbolism to the work. Chinese has a saying that as the leaves fall, they return to the roots. The meaning could be literal, but it actually describes the cycle of life. Leaves mature, fall, and decompose and return the nutrients to the tree to be recycled. We also have another saying; whenever one drinks water, think of where it came from. So along with finding one's roots, one also appreciates the natural cycle of life.
One might say that the one on the left is a shallower painting, but only I know the hidden meanings. So I will go with my gut feeling, put the darker one into the exhibition, the one that is more superficial yet elicits a stronger feeling.
I also want to show the translucent property of the semi-sized Xuan. Ink from the brushstrokes totally penetrated the paper, such that the back side of the paper showed a painting in reverse.
Here's the back side of the one on the left
and the back side of the one on the right
This is the reason I worked on my process of Suliao Xuan Ban; on the process of mounting on plastic. I wanted the effect of a float that can be viewed from either the front or the back. Perhaps the painted panes on a lit lantern illustrate my point.
The right one gives a very detailed accounting of where everything is. There seems to be order in the chaos, if one is interested and motivated to find out. The one on the left just stares at you; you either hate it or love it.
Somehow the left one elicits a stronger emotional response from me. I can't really put a finger on it. Perhaps it's my dark personality. In fact as it stands right now, the more I look at the one on the right, the more anemic it seems.
So now I have to choose a piece for an exhibition and I am still vacillating between the two.
In a way I would really hate to lose the one on the right, if by some weird luck I manage to sell the piece. I want to be able to savor the fruit of my labor a bit longer, especially after the enormous amount of time and effort into it. Something tells me that painting is not fully done yet.
The fact that there are leaves depicted in the painting added another layer of symbolism to the work. Chinese has a saying that as the leaves fall, they return to the roots. The meaning could be literal, but it actually describes the cycle of life. Leaves mature, fall, and decompose and return the nutrients to the tree to be recycled. We also have another saying; whenever one drinks water, think of where it came from. So along with finding one's roots, one also appreciates the natural cycle of life.
One might say that the one on the left is a shallower painting, but only I know the hidden meanings. So I will go with my gut feeling, put the darker one into the exhibition, the one that is more superficial yet elicits a stronger feeling.
I also want to show the translucent property of the semi-sized Xuan. Ink from the brushstrokes totally penetrated the paper, such that the back side of the paper showed a painting in reverse.
Here's the back side of the one on the left
and the back side of the one on the right
This is the reason I worked on my process of Suliao Xuan Ban; on the process of mounting on plastic. I wanted the effect of a float that can be viewed from either the front or the back. Perhaps the painted panes on a lit lantern illustrate my point.
