I Yen Chen

“To see mountains as mountains, rivers as rivers; to see mountains not as mountains, rivers not as rivers; to see again mountains as mountains, rivers as rivers.” This Zen saying emphasizes the transformation of the viewer's mind through the process of observation. It describes also the approach of the artist: constantly raising doubts, thinking and exploring matters, and thereby apprehending the essence. Artists seek to respond to such a process through their practice, depicting inner thought with outer labor. Interpretations of contemporary art are diverse and open, but it has rarely been discussed from the perspective of craftsmanship. Only if the idea of craftsmanship merely as a term or classification could be broken, to be seen as beyond mere aesthetics of technique and material, may craft adopt its place as a process of knowledge transmission along with other arts, thus further drawing out the meaning behind works. It may be about the circulation of time and space, the bridging between history and culture, or family relations, self-identity, or the search for creativity and harmony through the merging of disciplines.

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2020 ART TAIPEI | S07 / S17

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Photo credit: Taiwan Art Space Alliance, TASA