Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Yi-Jen Lee

Tao Hua Yuan

Tao Hua Yuan is a Chinese utopia where the people live in and unaware of the outside world. I want to create my own Tao Hua Yuan to ease my homesickness and pursue inner peace. As a Taiwanese immigrate in Canada, I feel far away from the hometown. With Two identities, I always feel the struggle and want to feel belong to one of them. The bridge combining both eastern and western worlds is to express my yearning to belong two both identities and not in between. I also want to create a Tao Hua Yuan for my grandfather and my grad-grandmother final unity in the afterlife. The portrait of my grad-grandmother waiting for her son to come from the other side across the bridge which links both mainland China and Taiwan. 遊子吟:慈母手中線，遊子身上衣；臨行密密縫，意恐遲遲歸。誰言寸草心，報得三春輝？- 孟郊English translation of "A Traveller's Lament":A loving mother busied herself with needleworkOn clothes for a son who was going away;On the eve of his departure she sewed thread after thread,Worrying that his return would be delayed and late.How could the love of grass only inches tallEver reciprocate spring after spring of sunshine day after day?- Meng Jiao (751 AD- 814 AD)Process: First, I drop the ink into the water and dip the rice paper to create unpredictable ink marks, simulating how something suddenly happened. Before I put my brush onto the paper, I begin my ritual. Circling the ink stick on the inkstone creates a sound that helps me to calm down. With my eyes closed and the ink mark flying in my mind, I can bring myself into an imaginary place with some flashbacks of the places I travel before. Freely expression along with Chinese poetry creates a spiritual place that allows me to pursue inner peace.