Artvironment (生息) 2013

Really tired after almost an entire week of reading. So I took a little time off to look at a current exhibition. It's not the usual type of art exhibition where the artists are merely interested in selling their work or getting a bit of lime light. It's got a theme. The theme is our need to reflect a little on how we are treating this much abused earth whom we plunder and pollute at pleasure in our our short-sighted concern for economic 'growth". I like the its title: "breathe life, 2013."

The notice at the entrance of the exhibition

According to Susan Yeung, one of the exhibitors, life may be likened to a drop of water: it begins as a serene trickle from the snow covered  mountain; rushes down between steep cliffs, passes a bustling and noisy zone of dazzling prosperity, then merges with the limitless ocean. Like life, there's a mesmerizing prelude, a resounding climax amidst leisurely lows and it ends with a lingering finale. To her, the landscape of life is a mosaic of chaos, of encounters which somehow magically sublimates everything into those boundless seas and limitless skies, with its highs and lows and its rise and fall. Everything changes with time. To her, our true self can survive only if we begin by loving: loving people, loving nature, loving life. She says that only love can fill our hearts which have run dry and remove what divides man from man.She concludes: to learn to let go is to arrive at our heart's final resting place, that ultimate source of all happiness.

Painting #1, presumably where everything starts

Painting #2 , Strife coming in?

Painting # 3 : getting turbulent?

Painting # 4: Getting even more turbulent

Painting #5: The frenzied incandesence white heat?

Painting # 6 : the highs and the lows: a mix of white, yellow, orange, red, blue-green, blue and purple?

Painting # 7 The flow of life with its myriad colors

Painting #7 Everything returning to the dark green, green and yellow and gold of the sea ?

Derek Que's "Shut Up, Won't Listen" . He says: "There're always good reasons to ignore environmental protection and to shut ourselves up: Don't say anything. Not willing to speak. Don't listen. Not willing to hear. I hope through my exhibits to give voice to the outcries for environmental protection of some thinking people.They gesture their self-repression. An indictment. An evasion, An ignorance. It's environment protection of the spirit. Who'll respond?" 

Alpha & Omega by Ada Chan. She says: "Everything is connected...even if we don't see the relations. Every step we take affects the next. What we do today may have consequences for tomorrow and for eras to come. We shall be held to account for our actions. If we don't treasure what's bestowed on us now, we may regret in future that we have passed on little or nothing to our next generation." She tells us that the series of her paintings may be viewed from left ( where we find darkness, extinction and abuse ) to right ( which depicts problems like global warming still capable to be stopped ) or vice versa, starting from the centre where she places the "tree of life".   She says that she's that kitten behind the tree, the smallest and weakest creatures amongst the tiger, lion, and giraffe, the elephant. She asks us to consider: "the choice is ours."

Wine and beer bottles in a recyling depot

The remains of a spring bed

Ringo Tam says that circle of life continues as we move along the arrow of time and it's only the handiwork of nature which gives meaning and value to  life. However, respect for nature is forgotten and nature is destroyed amidst the urban mist: but an apparently humble existence can still bear witness to the impermernance of man's world: all passions and desires may vanish in the blink of an eye: what we owned, by whom we were owned? Wasting our whole life in pursuit of things instead of allowing them vanish like shifting sand...allowing our insatiable desires to build up our weight and our volume . But a sense of eternity will show up our failures. Through thousands of choices and hundreds of changes, our shadows remain with us unchanged, commuting between the those rubbish dumps upon which we build our dreams on the wasteland. " He asks, "When shall we ever learn to pick up a flower and smile again? "

flowers in an abandoned beach?

fallen leaves in the dried puddles of a mud flat

A fish carved by the hands of nature?These are the works of another exhibitor, name forgotten.  When will we ever learn to create something of beauty from the most unpromising materials?