EXHIBITED:

Li Chen - In Search of Spiritual Space, National Museum of China, Beijing, 2008

ILLUSTRATED:

Li Chen in 52nd Venice Biennale - Energy of Emptiness, Asia Art Center, Taipei, 2007, color illustrated, cover & pp. 173-177 (different sized version illustrated)

Li Chen in Beijing - In Search of Spiritual Space, Asia Art Center, Taipei, 2008, black-and-white illustrated, pp. 116-123 & p. 172 & p. 175 (different sized version illustrated)

The sculpture is to be sold with a certificate of authenticity issued by Asia Art Center, Taipei.

Li Chen completed this work in 2005 as part of his series "Spiritual Journey through the Great Ether", and it is full of the romantic mood of immortals and poets. The sculpture has a self-satisfied manner, with the figure floating ethereally and aesthetically on top of clouds. Li Chen certainly excels at dealing with this type of corresponding relationship between the form and impact of the image. This type of eastern art has a direct transmittance to the heart, and is as described in his lines of verse: "standing alone on heavenly mountain tops, floating unfettered on clouds."

"Soothing Breezes Floating Clouds" impresses an ideal world of "Early dusk, looking out into the void, the red sun sets, driving away the gray smoke" as Li Chen writes. It is a creation infused with a sense of humor and an expansive inner harmony, a leisurely and spirited figure, with the air of a Taoist immortal floating in paradise. In a supremely moving manner, his auspicious fan directs a remote breeze. In his heavenly world he peacefully melts the boundless illusions.