——Dedicated to My Mother

Exhibition dates: Nov. 15, 2008 to Dec. 10, 1100hrs to 1800hrs

Venue: XYZ Gallery, D 05 of 798 Middle Second Street of 798 art center

Curator: Dr. Caryn Voscuil & Catherine Cheng

Contact Information: 010 8459 9299/13701104223

<Who Took My Blue Sky Away?> Xueyi Painting Solo Exhibition

    One morning in 2007, my two good friends Dr. Ichi Hsu and Mr. Gao Xinjiang came to our gallery to see a new exhibition.   Mr. Gao looked at me with a serious face and said ”Xueyi, you should paint!  Your poems are just paintings made with words, and I believe that you could paint well.”  I made my first attempt at painting that very night, though it seemed unimportant that the light in my room was dark and dim.  The colors and the brush guided my heart about the canvas. The image in my heart appeared in front of my eyes, and I felt passionately that I had found another method to express the secrets of my soul.  I was delighted to find that some things I could not describe with words could be expressed through painting.  Hence, I entitled my first painting Another Journey; and tears filled my eyes when I looked at it, aware now that I had thus far been complacent and had limited myself.  Through painting, I found my other ‘Self’ hiding beyond the conventionality.  Through painting I was able to see again my favorite flowers that have now disappeared in my hometown, the sunflowers above the flooding water, and I could contemplate the will of the wilderness.  I could communicate with myself again and learn from my past experiences one more time, viewing them with new eyes.  

Chinese ink painting is the visual artistic expression that most closely corresponds to the emotional expression of poetry, so I tried painting with ink wash. During the preparation of Zencat’s porcelain exhibition entitled Poetry Transcends Time and Space, my mother passed away unexpectedly, and I lost the most valuable thing in my life. I fell into a desperate sadness, as if I had lost the sky, the stars, the sun, and the moon; it seemed to me that even the flowers and the grass had disappeared. My heart was calling out for my mother whenever I went to sleep or woke up, and I spent most of my time painting at my desk with tears running down my face.  I also had the feeling that my mother’s sense of truthfulness and beauty were visible in the ink wash, reminding me that it was she who brought me into the world.  I now have a deep understanding of how Chinese artists express their emotions through this particular media; ink wash.  To paint with ink wash calms down my heart so that I am able to transcend the sorrow caused by the loss of my mother. Desperation is transformed into peace.

Both poetry and painting make marks upon my destiny.  Can anyone imagine that a girl who came from a poor remote mountain area is today able to operate her own gallery and have her own exhibition?  With the grace of God, my mother will look down from heaven with delight on my exhibition.  I would like to express my gratitude to two people in particular: Catherine Cheng, who has put forth great effort in realizing my dream; and Feng Zhongyun, who as a fine teacher has guided my learning in the art of ink painting, and continues to help me to reap the spiritual benefits of practicing this art.

Finally I wanted to say: “Who took my blue sky away?  I wanted to get it back.”

Xueyi at Blackbridge Art Village, 2008

Translated by Catherine Cheng

Edited by Caryn Voscuil

"Her art is deeply inspiring. I am especially inspired by her subtle use of color and turning color into forms that convey an inner life of great beauty. I am also amazed at the broad range and breathtaking quantity of her work. It grabs attention and penetrates deep into the memory. I carry her images away from the page and keep seeing them throughout the hours into an enduring future."

by John McAlister, PHD 66', Yale University, USA

“Wallace Stevens once said that he wrote poetry to help people live their lives.  It can also be said more generally of all art that it is directed towards the same purpose – that is, to help those who engage with it to touch the life of the artist and, in doing so, see their own lives in new or more profound ways.  Certainly, this is the object of great art; yet today it seems that many artists are obsessed with commercialism and pecuniary ambition.  Certainly the arts must be patronized in a civilized society, but when art is created solely for the purpose of pandering to the collector, then the resultant art is soulless and serves as mere decoration.  Such art may put food on the table, but it does not inspire or enlighten – that is – it does not help people to live their lives.

    What a breath of fresh air it is, then, to experience the works of Xueyi.  In an industry hastening towards frivolity and cliché, the poet Xueyi’s engaging works open a world of innocence, pain, emancipation and hope to an audience otherwise surrounded by imitation and triviality……To move through this exhibition of Xueyi’s paintings is to dance emotionally through the conflicting sensations of human life, and to come out in the end with a more profound acceptance of its agony and of its beauty – realizing that without the former, one could not fully experience nor appreciate the latter.”  By Dr. Caryn Voscuil’s <Poetry On Canvas>