The work I am doing now is about Eastern religions, which include Buddhism and Taoism. In oriental cultural systems, both Taoism and Buddhism philosophies try to find the “Perfection”, which only includes absolute quietness and pure thought processes. They are usually connected to the nature, mountain and water, which are also most elements in Chinese painting. In respect of the golden age of Chinese landscape, I used photoshop and collage to portrayed an traditional Chinese mountain landscape painting, with no buildings and industrialized elements involved. I also combined the images with Chinese Calligraphy. Calligraphy in traditional Chinese art history was often connected with paintings and religion meanings. The whole process is a kind of meditation, which helps people find peace in their mind.

The meaning of characters on pictures:

天地不仁

T’ien ti pu jen

Heaven and Earth are not kind;

The ten thousand things are straw dogs to them.

上善若水

Shang shan jo shui

Best to be like water,

Which benefits the ten thousand things

And does not contend.

It pools where humans disdain to dwell,

Close to the Tao.

道法自然

Humans follow earth

Earth follows heaven

Heaven follows Tao.

Tao follows its own nature.

Tao fa tzu jan.

道生一

Tao sheng i.

Tao engenders One,

One engenders Two,

Two engenders Three,

Three engenders the ten thousands things.

The ten thousand things carry shade

And embrace sunlight.

Shade and sunlight, yin and yang,

Breath blending into harmony.

My practice of calligraphy.

I like the soft color and lines on the photos taken by Polaroid 2000.

This is a container of Chinese white wine. Most of ancient Chinese artists love this kind of alcohol.

It is a solid ink, which is made in a traditional process. I put it on the wet calligraphy paper,

which make lines irregular and the the whole picture like a unrepaired cultural relics.

These two dots are two acrobats juggling on a string between two mountains.

I like the large negative space of sky and two small people. It seems like that

human are very small for the nature. The theory  in Taoism — Heaven and

Earth are not kind: The ten thousand things are straw dogs to them.

These photo are taken by my phone. I shoot through windows of my car in early morning, therefore, they are all unfocused and with fog.

I try to make this group of photos like ink painting . I also like the large negative space and blurred lines.

I put these four photos as a series. In the first picture which was taken by Polaroid, These two dots are two acrobats juggling on a string between two mountains. The other three landscape were taken by my phone. I shoot through windows of my car in early morning, therefore, they are all unfocused and with fog. I try to make this group of photos like ink painting . All of these photographs are blurred and lines in these pictures are really soft. There is a lot of negative space of sky.  I got inspired from tradition Chinese painting and Taoism philosophy concepts. These photos is the deconstruction of an ancient painting called “Early Spring”.

Xi, Guo. Early Spring. (1072)                                                                                            Detailed parts of Early Spring

According to Duan Lian’s opinion(2019), ideograms are not only the visual representation of images, but also the meaning of concepts, which helps audiences understand the ideology in the tradition of Chinese landscape painting. In “Early Srping”(Guo, 1072), images of hills, peaks, and rivers represent the landscape, but this representation does not stop there. In “Early Spring”, There are also several small figures, who are travelling, fishing and boating. Broadly speaking, in the tradition of Chinese landscape painting, the small figures in the landscape represent certain aspects of life, while life represents the Taoist concept: human is only a small part of nature. This concept is ideological, and it points to ancient philosophies dealing with lifestyles such as Taoism. From a semiotic point of view, the representation relation ship between the referent and the referent is not simple, but multi-layered. (Duan, 2019) In “Early Spring”, there are at least three representative levels. In form, the appearance of the landscape image is a sign that represents mountains, rivers and woods. The indicator and the indicated together constitute the visual sign of the spring scene. On the social icon, representing a certain aspect of the real life of the upper middle class. On the ideological level, social symbols are transformed into philosophical symbols, representing the Taoist concept of lifestyle.

In my own work “Tao”. I make camera get unfocused and lines be soft to make the photographs look like Chinese painting . Eastern philosophy has always suggested that people maintain absolute calm and the evolution of their thinking process to achieve intuitive experience of life. In order to achieve this goal, my attention should be focused on the most form of existence in the universe. These photos explores the truth and hidden laws of things beneath the surface through simplification and abstraction. For example, Zhuangzi’s (4^th Century BC) aesthetics is not to say anything, exploring the spirituality and intuition before symbolization, trying to preserve the castrated part of the image after language and text conversion. And the original text in Tao Te Ching is:

天地不仁

T’ien ti pu jen

Heaven and Earth are not kind;

The ten thousand things are straw dogs to them.

道法自然

Tao fa tzu jan

Humans follow earth

Earth follows heaven

Heaven follows Tao.

Tao follows its own nature.

Taoism&Photography / Derek Cai / Presentation: Methods & Context 4 (2020-2021)[YR] by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0