EXHIBITED:
Mythologies of Contemporary Art by Three Artists: ZhangHong-tu, Yang Mao-lin and Tu Wei-cheng, Taipei Fine ArtsMuseum, Taipei, March 21 – May 3, 2009
Made in Taiwan Yang Mao-Lin: A Retrospective, Taipei FineArts Museum, Taipei, January 30-April 24, 2016ILLUSTRATEDMythologies of Contemporary Art by Three Artists: ZhangHong-tu, Yang Mao-lin and Tu Wei-cheng, 2009, Taipei FineArts Museum, color illustrated, p. 13

A STORY ABOUT AFFECTION ｜ 2007 - 2009

What Yang Mao-lin is trying to say here is that since ancient times humanity’s shared and mutually cultivated feelings of joy, sorrow, infatuation and anger – so-called love – are just that pure and simple, at once frivolous yet deep. Over the long haul, what he has repeatedly experienced and been constantly relearning is that these originally imaginary love stories can often still bring out a lot of emotions from him. Whether with the three tragic love stories in copper or the three comedy love stories in stainless steel, he has used the form and postures of the tantric Laughing Buddha to “deify” them, imbuing them with the common thread of the Lotus Position. And as to one of the symbolic characteristics of Buddhist statuary – the backlighting of the holy Buddha – he has employed the flat surface techniques of relief sculpture and engraving to display a summary visual marker for the whole of the romantic love story, creating the effect of a symbolically sacred backlighting, expounding upon the idealized purity and sacredness of love in his mind.

--Excerpted from the Official Website of Yang Mao-lin Artist Studio.