EXHIBITED:
Tzu-chi Yeh: Through the Landscape of the Mind 1988-1996 ,
Jia Art Gallery, Taipei, January 11 - February 6, 1997
ILLUSTRATED:
Tzu-chi Yeh , Jia Art Gallery, Taipei, 1997, color illustrated

REAR WINDOW, SUMMER AFTERNOON
TZU-CHI YEH

Tzu-chi Yeh's paintings have always combined composition that has a strongly contemporary feel to it with an air of classical elegance. Over a period of nearly six decades of learning and self-cultivation that spanned both Chinese and Western culture (Yeh had lived in Taiwan until he was nearly thirty, before spending nearly two decades in the West, and then returning to Taiwan for almost a decade.) Yeh's artistic training and spiritual cultivation has displayed a high degree of cross-cultural depth and breadth. Born in the town of Yuli in the Hua-tung Rift Valley in Eastern Taiwan, Yeh grew up surrounded by mountains. Yeh's father, who was born in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, was a highly-cultured man with a love of traditional Chinese painting, calligraphy and poetry. Deeply influenced by his father, Tzu-chi Yeh displayed considerable talent at Chinese painting and calligraphy from a young age, while also developing an in-depth knowledge of Chinese poetry and prose; he was able to appreciate the philosophical underpinnings of traditional Chinese landscape painting. Yeh's own landscape paintings, with their combination of rational exploration and emotional expression, embody the immense power that can be achieved by positioning oneself at the shifting border between Chinese and Western art.

The phenomenologist Maurice Merleau- Ponty once said that "the depth of a painting is not the automatic product of perspective or photographic realism; it must be the result of struggle, a symbolic icon that goes against the foundations of reality." Seeking depth in his paintings has always been one of Tzu-chi Yeh's goals. Through a process of creating layered washes, Yeh establishes a sense of depth that arises out of the colors used in the painting; whether bright and exuberant or dark and gloomy, Yeh's paintings are always in a state of transformation. The way Tzu-chi Yeh approaches the structure of his paintings is different from that of most realist artists. Yeh's construction of realism derives from the inherent "codes" of nature, like a distant, primitive echo, an invisible source of artistic inspiration that reawakens a magic that had long since disappeared.

Tzu-chi Yeh's works are the truthful reflection and records of his life. As such, the viewers can see the ups and downs of the different periods in his life. For the artist himself, his works also carry important meanings and memories. His landscape works are often realist, but with a hint of the mystical, creating a sensation that brings the viewers into an concerte realm. The modern, minimalist composition creates profundity and remoteness, adding a strong and poetic feel to the work. There is always a sense of calm human warmth beyond the details and the realism. Through his unique stylistic elements for paintings, Yeh brings us boundless imagination within the finite boundaries of his work.

Tsu-chi Yeh's creations often take a lot of time, infusing his works with much personal sentiments. In this work, for example, the artist stated "One can see from the windows that several trees of heaven have sprouted in the backyard of the old apartment - a scene seen everywhere in New York, but more importantly, a scene that reminds me of my mother's love for eating Chinese toons. I painted this in midsummer, when the lights and shadows had been moving and changing lazily on the old murals, and I had worked unhurriedly accordingly. That autumn, my father had passed away, and as the leaves of the trees of heaven fell, counting those changes of light on the murals became a process for healing. During this period, there were struggles, self-control, and commemoration."