When it comes to culture (and even religion), I don't hold a
purist stance but an enrich stance.
As in…lots of Chinese "cultured" people pride
themselves by not speaking other languages and taking other races’ food. And of
course they sneer at Singlish and Sinnese (Singapore Chinese).
But I would think, why do that? We should measure our depth
of culture by how much we include, we know, we love; not how much we exclude,
we ignore, we disdain.
Culture is after all, humanity. We love culture when we take
interest in humanity.
So we should learn a lot of our culture and learn a lot of
other cultures as well. We are proud of our own while we appreciate others.
So some Chinese artist would look at my paintings and ask: "Is
this Chinese painting? Is this Chinese art?"
So I say, what does it matter? I am Chinese so my art is
Chinese art. Is it not enough?
Does it need to be Chinese only when I use the tools that
are invented by Chinese one thousand years ago, holding on to the taste that
belongs to a few dynasties ago, and using the technique that was invented
centuries ago?
I purposely use gold and lots of colors in my paintings. I mean
I have a repertoire of skills, but I chose the above as my focus.
Because most Chinese literati 文人 disdain gold and colors
as low taste, materialistic, worldly庸俗。
But for me, I think, why should we disdain anything that
enriches lives? Our lives, or lives of others.
So we should embrace colors.
And for gold...it's given by God.
It's almost the only material in this world that never rusts.
It melts under fire but never reduce in size and weight. And it never rots.
Strangely, even in times when people of different continents
have not started interacting with one another, people universally loved gold
and regarded it as their most precious commodities. They all used gold as money.
Humans live in a temporary world, and everything around us disintegrates
and rots in time.
No one, nothing, can gain victory over the erosion of time.
Only gold can.
So, it's not just a material value, but spiritual as well.
Showing human beings’ timeless desire to conquer time.
-- Master Yun Long Zi
