25th Anniversary of the 921 Earthquake – On The Walking Mountain: Lee Shien-Wen Solo Exhibition in Remembrance of the 921 Earthquake

At the opening ceremony of Reconstructing and Commemorating the Art History of Taiwan: Hsiun-Shih Art (Lion Art) and Lee Shien-Wen’s Charity Art Exhibit held in May 2024, Mr. Lee Shien-Wen gave a speech recalling his zealous efforts dedicated to Hsiung-Shih Art. After the magazine’s publication was suspended, he began sorting out the archives of past publications that would be donated to the National Central Library and got overwhelmed as he recollected every detail of his indelible journey throughout the past few decades devoted to Hsiung-Shih Art. He sobbed during the emotional part of the speech while expressing his gratitude for being able to contribute to Taiwanese art history. According to Mr. Lee, the published materials, archives, as well as a series of his works, “Senior Artists’ Portraits”, inspired by his interactions with the portrayed artists, which would eventually be preserved in the National Central Library, would serve as an official recognition of his hard work. He hoped these collections could benefit the future development of our research on Taiwanese art history. I was deeply touched by his selflessness and sense of obligation to society manifested through his words and deeds, which I believed would benefit future generations of artists, art lovers, students, and citizens. He has embodied his prospect of societal commitment and generosity consistently throughout his career of publishing art-related research as well as his personal artwork.

Three years ago, our staff began a discussion with Mr. Lee on his solo exhibition that was planned to be held this year at Hong-gah Museum. Ever since the final issue of Hsiung-Shih Magazine, Mr. Lee, who devoted himself to the study of painting, has expressed his deep affection for this island’s culture, respect for the natural environment, and his fervor for art through his every single piece of work. My favorite out of them was a series of work created between 2016 and 2017, Dreaming Back to Nature: Orchid Island’s Medley, which comprises 9 exquisite ink paintings in vertical compositions presenting the unique natural and cultural landscape of Orchid Island, including the intersection of the mountains and seas and the traditions of the indigenous Tao tribe such as underground houses, plank boats, and the Hair-Swinging Dance. As for Clouded Leopard’s Return created in 2020, the emphasis lies in its abstract painting and freehand brushwork techniques. The painting was created based on Mr. Lee’s experience of visiting an aboriginal village named Kucapungane and the local folklore about the legendary clouded leopard told by the elderly of the village, thereby allowing the extinct mythical creature to reenter the audience’s minds. These artworks reflect Mr. Lee’s qualities, including his prudent perspective on diverse cultures, respect for other species, and his positive mindset and energy. Even though the world was still in the grip of a severe pandemic at the time of our first encounter, Mr. Lee seemed to maintain his ordinary lifestyle and tenaciously took pains to convey the soothing messages in his creation, appeasing the anxious society with his artworks.

Mr. Lee reminded me that 2024 would be the 25th anniversary of the 921 Earthquake, a large-scale disaster that haunted Taiwan with its detrimental impacts, transforming the previously lush Jiujiufeng into barren land overnight, tearing families apart, and inflicting incalculable losses upon our country. These days, Jiujiufeng has regained its former luxuriant greenery under the healing power of nature, yet the catastrophe continues to remind us of our inability as humans when confronting natural disasters. Creative works provide hope for people in the face of disasters and also serve as a medium to remember those who have passed away and past events; thus, the theme for this exhibition, centered around commemorating the 921 Earthquake, has been decided.

Walking Mountain: Lee Shien-Wen’s Solo Exhibition in Remembrance of the 921 Earthquake, held on the 25th anniversary of the 921 earthquake, revolves around a theme, the cycles of post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, and gradually uncovers the inspiration and narratives behind his works. His long scroll painting, “Three Visits to Ninety-Nine Peaks” completed in 2001, would serve as the main piece among his exhibited works. “Three Visits to Ninety-Nine Peaks” portrays the devastating landscape of the mountains of Jiujiufeng Mr. Lee observed during his three visits there in 2000, one year after the earthquake. After a prolonged period of diligence, Mr. Lee successfully captured the essence of the intense and complex emotions, visualized them through detailed depictions of the resilient residents who persisted in rebuilding their desolate homeland, and implicitly rendered the intense fear and shock experienced at the incident through the enormous size of the painting. The whole piece would be exhibited in Hong-gah Museum for the first time in over twenty years. Conceptually corresponding with “Three Visits to Ninety-Nine Peaks” were two other works, “Still Waters” and “The Walking Mountain”, based on Mr. Lee’s recent visits to the same old place. “Still Waters” portrays the flowing Wu River, commonly known as Da Du Xi, with its width reaching hundreds of meters and its length spanning from the Central Mountain Range to the estuary joining Taiwan Strait. Reflecting the scenery of the distant Jiujiufeng like a mirror, the river’s water is constantly flowing, yet capturing a single moment can render it seemingly still. “The Walking Mountain”, on the other hand, reintroduces Jiujiufeng as the portrayed subject with a different image from “Still Waters”, highlighting the fact that despite seeming consistent the whole time, the mountains, in fact, undergo incessant changes. The little rocks, grass, trees, birds, and every living organism on the mountains would continue to alter the overall appearance every single day, resulting in a notable difference through time. For instance, not only has Jiujiufeng’s landscape returned to lush greenery over the past twenty-five years, one can also now see the newly built National Highway No.6 from afar. These two new pieces, characterized by calm and modest strokes, illustrate the natural cycles of healing after major environmental changes and humans’ efforts to rebuild and promote urban development, without criticizing their actions. Compared with the earth, the lifespans of humans are extremely brief, underscoring the inevitability of aging and the unstoppable passage of time. In addition to the three main works, the other sixteen relatively small works that would be displayed across two separate folding screens capture Jiujiufeng’s landscapes in different seasons in further detail and from distinctive perspectives.

After the 921 Earthquake, several unfortunate disasters occurred consecutively in Taiwan, which included Typhoon Toraji in 2001, Typhoon Morakot in 2009, etc. The exhibited series of paintings inspired by these post-921 Earthquake disasters was titled “Ten Illustrations of Flowing Changes”, presenting the terrifying moments of Typhoon Toraji, which caused devastating mudflows to strike in Xinyi Town, and Typhoon Morakot, bringing excessive amounts of driftwood onto the beaches and overflowing the eastern coast of Taiwan. These shocking and impressive landscapes seemed to evoke artists’ desires to create works that document the horrifying states of the ruined locations and to immerse their physical senses in the grandeur of nature and the empathy for the distress experienced by the living beings around the local environment. The energy the artists received from the residents and the environment would later be converted into consolation towards society through their creative works.

To satiate my curiosity, I inquired of Mr. Lee how he managed to remain calm while recording the scenes of ruins of houses, roads buried under rocks and debris, and the performance of invocation rituals held by the mourning relatives of those killed by the disasters. He answered that he chose not to watch these incidents from a distance and deliberately compelled himself to exert himself to face and experience these fears and sorrows because he wanted to preserve these key moments within his works, encapsulating the feelings he had gone through in person. With modesty, he claimed that he never studied in art school and was never formally trained in traditional ink painting techniques, such as ‘cun’ (wrinkle), ‘ca’ (scrub), ‘dian’ (dot), and ‘ran’ (dye), but instead came to fully understanding and comprehending these techniques step-by-step after finding out they were elements vital for his creation. Mr. Lee’s choices of being present on the scene, aligning his works’ topics with the generation’s concerns, and fully connecting with the concurrent moments might be the essence of his passion and spirit for artistic creation that no one could imitate.

In fact, flooded by fallen mud and rocks, Jiujiufeng initially became restricted for climbing due to loose and muddy road conditions caused by the 921 earthquake, of which the difficulty of access reached a certain level even climbing experts could not overcome. Mr. Lee Shien-Wen, who successfully reached the surrounding area during such challenging conditions, accumulated sketches and photographs of the mountains from various perspectives to his research. He eventually found an entrance leading towards one of the peaks where Wu River’s estuary could be observed; thereby, he was determined to create a long scroll painting based on the scenery.

Returning to his painting studio in 2001, Mr. Lee persisted in adhering to the four principles he set for himself throughout the creative period of this long scroll painting. His four rules included “no talking”, “no newspaper”, “no TV”, and “no radio”, reducing external distractions to help him focus on his creation. Each day, he would wake up at 4:30 AM, recite and copy the Diamond Sutra, and then dedicate time in the afternoon to planning and working on the painting. Except lunchtime, Mr.Lee filled the remaining intervals between the main sessions with activities such as gardening, practicing Tai Chi, and contemplating how he should precisely convey and capture his emotions elicited by the earthquake, how the scenes should be connected to increase the cohesion in between, and how the close-up and distant views should be structured in the painting. During these few weeks, Mr. Lee Shien-Wen also tried to complement his brainstorming process with language and poetry, composing nine related poems. Weeks of solitude provided Mr. Lee the opportunity to abate the intense emotions he accumulated when he was on the spot where the disaster occurred, while his independent imagination allowed him to converse in his mind and resonate deeply with seniors who cultivated the path of creation. Mr. Lee strived to find the most suitable techniques for the presenting of contemporary themes to select and convey the messages accurately, crafting works that would endure generations without being eliminated by time. Heeding the wonder of nature and expressing ecological consciousness through his works were his exclusive and considerate ways to propel the development of contemporary ink painting themes.

Mr. Xiong Bingming, a deceased prominent Taiwanese artist once based in France, left a precious inscription for Mr. Lee’s long scroll painting “Three Visits to Ninety-Nine Peaks”. “Despite the cliched choice of portraying mountains and rivers in long scroll paintings, Mr. Lee Shien-Wen’s work exhibits four unique traits, setting it apart from past creations. First, earthquakes have never been used as a theme in ink paintings before. Second, artists have never employed the Flying Sand Scatter technique to depict such chaotic, undefined state in the initial part of the scroll, which will be presented before the audience’s eyes at first sight. Third, scenes of mountains, peaks, lakes, and oceans are illustrated using his original techniques without being constrained by the rigid, conservative rules of traditional ink painting for the purpose of capturing a relatively objective, realistic perspective. Fourth, the artist’s compassion for all living beings is evident in every tree, bird, blade of grass, and stone delicately depicted with simple strokes, revealing an expansive yet meticulous atmosphere that highlights the interplay of roughness and refinement, where the rough becomes refined and the refined, rough. This piece does not serve as an ostentatious display of artistry but rather renders the fun, innocent essence of art. I consider this kind of creation extremely precious and hope to share a mutual encouragement with this colleague of mine through my inscription,” Mr. Xiong remarked. Mr. Xiong’s compliments indicated that Mr. Lee’s works indeed inherited the spirit of humanistic care, one of the long-endured attributes of traditional ink painting, yet remained unconfined by conventions and rules. Mr. Lee would rather pay more heed to the displaying of his affectionate care for the human society and creating resonation between the art and audience than the pursuit in mastering art techniques. Positive commentaries from other renowned ink painting artists, such as Chen Yun-Cheng, Zheng Shan-Xi, and Xi Song, also demonstrated the artists’ appreciation towards each other and proved that the immutable spirit of ink painting creation would not be altered despite the theme’s contemporaneity.

The layout of the exhibit will echo the concept of ongoing cycles between natural disasters and post-disaster reconstruction, traumas and healing to correspond with the exhibition’s theme. Before entering the main exhibition hall, the audience will have the chance to explore some of Mr. Lee Shien-Wen’s earlier works. “Seeing Taipei”, “Climbing Shei-Pa”, “Taroko (triptych)”, “Remnants of the Landscape” will be displayed in albums, providing viewers with a glimpse of the evolution of Mr. Lee’s artistic journey throughout the past 20 years regarding the establishment of his nature conservation-bound concepts as well as his ascending dexterity and proficiency in wielding brushwork techniques. As a pertinent prelude before leading the audience into the main exhibition hall, this opening part will allow the audience to thoroughly perceive the connection between Mr. Lee’s art style and traditional Chinese ink painting while incentivizing viewers to dive more deeply into the artist’s art accomplishments along the visitor route. Upon leaving the main hall with a lingering impression of the stunning art, the audience will eventually return to the series of artwork exhibited near the entrance, where the familiar landscapes portrayed in these series of art encourage viewers to maintain their curiosity about the environment while serving as a transition back to reality. The innovative brushwork techniques derived from contemporary ink painting have been delicately interpreted through Mr. Lee Shien-Wen’s artworks. The themes of his creative works not only express and reflect modern perspectives but also align with common values in today’s society. As the intensity of threats from the environment increases during this agitating era filled with information explosion and climate change, the only path leading us to the uncontaminated land, where we can reflect on the meaning of life and return to our true self, is art.