Fusion 25

In 2007, the quarter-of-a-century mark of my life in this country loomed large on the horizon. It prompted me to scrutinize the memorable episodes in my fine-art undertakings. Hence the themes of this series.

I sifted through the sea of images I had made over the years to construct the right vocabulary. The oldest images dated back to 1978. A college freshman then, I devoted four years of my after-curricular life to photographing China until I had an opportunity in 1983 to study fine-art photography in the United States.

Though having been raised in metropolitan Shanghai, I was not totally unaware of the roughness of rural life in China. But any early inclination to romanticize it quickly gave way to deep sympathy for the farmers I observed in my viewfinder. I plunged in, capturing the humble, enduring, under-privileged and forgotten class of all time, not knowing those images would remain fresh in my memory in all the ensuing years.

Meanwhile, I also made several trips to photograph some of China's ethnic minorities, whose habitats were mostly scattered in remote mountains and plateaus. Among them were the Tibetans. Their unique life styles, customs and fervent religious rituals made such an ever-lasting impact on me many years later I was still looking for the ideal expressions to provide a peek into their souls.

My MFA study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in the early 80s exposed me to the principle of "self-expression". At the very beginning, I felt the pressure of the mainstream conceptualistic styling and thinking. Though thrilled by the challenges, I wasn't at once comfortable with my new-found freedom of self-expression, since I came from a country where just a couple of years before, "self" was denigrated to promote "public", and "expression" never shook loose the grip of political propaganda.

On the other hand, Chinese artists historically revered time-honored forms and practices. It was a widely held notion that art was all about making exquisite imagery to glorify life, to elevate the artist's own spirit, and to refine the individual's intellectual quality and temperament. In fact, most Chinese artists in the 80s were so bewildered by contemporary Western art that they regarded the so-called "self-expression" an act of irrational self-indulgence, a blasphemous gesture to tradition, in addition to an unscrupulous abandon of logic and formality.

In America, at the SAIC, I began to thrive in my new intellectual and artistic freedom. Experimenting. Absorbing. Adopting. I learned more. And more. I made spiritual adaptations in the context of my art work. I have never looked back.

Upon graduation, a sober reality dawned on me: the SAIC bandwagon of art exploration most likely would not steer me clear of the pitfall of "struggling artists". I could not afford to roll the dice. Therefore, I turned to commercial photography and printing with the consolation that I would always keep fine-art undertakings while taking care of the need to "feed my mouth".

Before long I began to sense the perplexity of contradicting motives. Throughout the ancient Chinese history fine art creation was often lauded as a metaphysical approach of personal spiritual purification, while free from the contamination of monetary motives. Some of the principles may well be traced to 2,000 years ago, as in the philosophies of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi. The process of art creation was supposed to enrich one's aesthetic and philosophical experiences. The merits of art work first and foremost, dwelled in one's loyalty to artistic integrity. Interestingly, this happened to concur with the pet principle of "self-expression" so dearly upheld at SAIC.

As it turned out, I could not just snap my fingers and switch between mind-sets. My eagerness to "express myself" would sometimes end up in "artsy" renditions of commercial projects, negating clients' requirements. And I had to conquer sneaking disinterest in carrying out assignments. On the other hand, my intent at fine art creation was often challenged by pragmatism, with frequent innate debate over the necessity to allocate time, energy and funds for it. Not to mention lack of sense of urgency, as there were no deadlines to meet and no immediate profits to pump me up.

In working on this series I was faced with a daunting task: How should I put everything in perspective and effectively render all these contradictions of the past 25 years, be they aesthetic, cultural, sociological, or religious? Through recollecting my thoughts and feelings, and manipulating the images, old and new, to illustrate my mind's paths, I literally relived the memoir I was creating.

Nature’s Transfiguration

This theme started in the mid-80s when I was a graduate student at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). In a way it contributed to the "cultural shock" of me being new in this country. At the school, I constantly felt the pressure to be “contemporary" in terms of my artistic expressions. I turned to set my eyes on Lake Michigan and the North Shore beaches that had long fascinated me. We had highly photogenic winters here with grotesque ice formations sculpted by the frozen waves. In summer, drift wood in exotic shapes were scattered around, presenting a surreal view of the beaches when the dusk set in.

I was motivated to find a new angle, one of my own. Being foreign certainly had its advantages: my "alien" sensibilities directed me to fresh points of view. I began to detect "transfiguration" in those formations and shapes and ventured to render them as such. After a while my mind's eye was so channeled that it would catch all kinds of "shape-shifters", i.e. objects suggesting an "organic" presence. To bring out their vitality I usually merged them in landscape surroundings with the help of both available light and artificial lighting.

As a result, a new perspective of presenting nature with my photography. And it has proved to me that a simple sway of photographic mind-set could enable the eye to transcend the sense of reality.

Moods & Moodiness

In my long history of photographing nature, I have constantly sought to differentiate my work not only from what I consider an over-stretch of pictorialism, the soothing, saccharine-sweet melodramas of superficial visual satisfaction, but from a simple-minded quest for magnificence. We are in fact, capable of more subtle and intricate moods and emotions that are waiting to be triggered and unleashed upon the right signal. So why not let nature expose our emotional depth?

Staying behind the camera, there were times when I found myself drenched in rain, covered with sleet, shivering in the chilly wind, but nevertheless, thrilled by the engulfing dark clouds and the last rays of the sun. Nature was at that instant manifesting its power to "swing" my moods as I could sense certain feelings oozing inside me and the urge to echo the grandeur, though "magnificent" was hardly my only gut response. It could well be vaguely "mysterious", ominously "pressing", and nervously “unsettling". At those moments I often felt a lone presence, a world belonging to me in solitude and a stage of Zen-like tranquility, yet fraught with meandering, subtle, secular emotions.

Dream & Sixth Sense

Dreams

Every time I had a disturbing dream, I would try to trace it after waking up, only to get frustrated by fragmented shadowy details and painful illogic. Nevertheless, the emotional impact was always unmistakable and sometimes the intensity would linger for quite a while.

I have long noticed that their occurrences could arouse vague yet familiar recollections buried in the back of my memory, corresponding to my most tumultuous ups and downs, though they by no means mirrored the actual episodes. Whether they were rooted in the fire that burned down my office, the burglary that ripped off my livelihood, my mother’s pass-away in extreme loneliness, or the "cultural shock" on me as a new immigrant, those dreams have over the years painted recurring "backdrops" of my mind.

Therefore, my imagery in this series is not so much about depicting the dreams as about rekindling the emotions.

6th Sense

This theme was to recreate what stirred up my subconscious experiences in my early years in this country, when a newcomer’s turbulent life brought along so much worry, uncertainty, anxiety and even desperation. And I endured so much “heat” in this much exalted and craved “melting pot”.

While I managed to brush aside the stress, for no reason I would sense the presence of inauspiciousness around. When the evening was descending, or in a room with the lights off, for a split second I might sometimes confuse it with dreams. Even the most ordinary objects could catch my eyes with their grotesque and spooky appearances. Is it true that our sixth sense dwells mainly in fear and trepidation?

Sky Carving

This theme originated in the mid-80s when I came from China to take my MFA courses at the School of the Art institute of Chicago. It was prompted by the question "what can he do in Chicago?"

What caught my eyes was the diverse, ultra modern downtown architecture, with its ruthlessly sharp, vigorously dynamic contours framing the oppressive yet thrilling geometric blocks of glass, steel and concrete. To me this striking magnificence exemplified this New World's unshakable philosophy: the iron-willed human resolve and power to reshape Earth as man sees fit. It also symbolized the new rules here that decree the ultimate obedience to senses, logic and order, the dependence on organization and efficiency, as well as the non-stop pursuit of commercial prosperity. Nonetheless, this “chilling” metropolis possessed its own irresistible aesthetic attraction.

Sometimes I would forget I was shooting with a camera. I felt like tossing various lines, shapes and colors into a vast blue pool, mixing, agitating, and eventually whipping the whole thing into arrays of sculpture.

Later on, I also adopted a macroscopic perspective to combine and merge geometric elements freely, in order for the metropolitan skyline to assume an illusionary multi-dimension presence. To my mind, this is another intimate touch I may add in portraying Chicago, my second hometown.

Long Time No See

People used to be a major subject of mine over 25 years ago. Back then I widely photographed the villagers in the rural areas of China, as well as many of the minority peoples including the Tibetans. I used to trek to the deep mountain villages and the tribes on the thinly-populated plateaus, spending weeks and months tracking local festivals and following religious rituals. At other times I wandered on the unpaved streets of the tiny towns and villages in the countryside, stealthily dodging people's attention so as to catch a glimpse of their intimate world. Most of my subjects appeared quiet, often expressionless, as if lost in thoughts if not in numbness. But I knew that wasn't the case.

Unlike my landscape work, those people photos were never accepted for exhibitions in China. On one occasion I smuggled in a few pieces only to see them flipped backwards on the wall the second day by the censorship officials. Simply put, such imagery was deemed "politically unhealthy": My "muck-raking" approach was denigrating a bright and rising Chinese society - the facial expressions always signified subdued acquiescence; the events always appeared lethargic and listless; the surroundings always shabby, filthy, poverty-ridden.... Even the public had difficulty embracing such "brutal truth": At the time everyone was trying to look forward, no one wished to be reminded of the hardships we had just left behind.

The reaction to these in the States was entirely different, needless to say. Yet I experienced another kind of disappointment. In the early 1980s China was so "outlandish" to the American public that their general knowledge and interest did not extend much beyond Peking (Beijing) and the Great Wall. The small circle of the SAIC* artists, on the other hand, would view my work in the context of Western street photography, which in the wake of Henri Cartier Bresson's "decisive moment" aimed to capture city people with distinctively different traits. My "other-worldly" images were primarily recognized for their pictorial appeals, with little regard to their cultural connotations.

This category currently contains two groups: 1. Chinese Farmers; 2. Tibetans. It is essentially a retrospective of my work in the 1980s, with a few additions taken in 2007. I also have a large body of other minority people as well as an "updated" version of their Chinese contemporary counterparts that I will post in the near future. Time has moved on. China seems totally different. But perhaps not entirely true of those in the countryside.

*SAIC: "The School of the Art Institute of Chicago"