Many Lives of Load-bearing

 

Many Lives of Load-bearing

2025

15x16x37.5cm/6x6.3x14.8in (HxWxD)

Cement, steel nails, embroidery, fabric particles, acrylic paints and epoxy

They appear in groups and are seen in solitude to mark venerable gestures.

Columns rise, hold, and perhaps falter. They stand with resolve, are built for weight and endurance. But an objective is not a promise. Time weathers and purpose eludes with age. A column’s strength may have its fragility foretold. This work examines the lives of columns as support and symbol—of vitality, permanence, and their flickering existences.

To immerse within and let water take over our eyes: it can be poured onto the pod and glide through the crevices to anoint the columns.

 

Not Necessarily ‘smooth sailing’...

 

Getting the artwork - Lives Beyond Loadbearing thought out and planning on mold-making are difficult.  However, it doesn’t warrant that every stop of the way to completion is challenge free.  Here is a juncture to make amends.

Fingers crossed; there are still processes to face up to including pigment adjustments, cement pouring and assembly. 

Yet, I’m enjoying the work.

Raw Architecture - Gau

Got this woodwork that demonstrates the very essence of architecture - delightful and effective piece of enclosure. It is a shrine box, gau as known in Tibet, collected in Shanghai years ago. The shopkeeper explained that this carving houses a deity for traveler or pilgrim on the road. My jade bear, posed inside the gau, is yet to be risen as deity.

Light: Visionary Perspectives

 

The exhibition is held at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto from 

Saturday, July 13, 2024 to Monday, April 21, 2025.

Visit and Afterthoughts on Kyoto, 2024