Artist Statement
On a cold winter night in the 40’s, General Zhu De stood guard for a junior soldier. He gazed at the snowfall, and started to miss the elders in Sichuan. Then he created a poem, ‘In snowing October armed horsemen were marching in Tai Hang/ And scantily dressed soldiers kills the dwarf thieves every night!’…
Half a century was gone since the Japanese Occupation. In deep autumn of the year 2005, Hong Kong photographer Bendick Leung arrived at Tai Hang Mountain described in Zhu De’s poem. Snow didn’t fall this time, and the mountain was full of ripen haws. Leung enjoyed a quiet dusk in the mountain where he photographed around, watching the sunset. With the tilt of sunlight, the textures of the mountain rocks were gracefully outlined. The splendour of Tai Hang was captured into his camera. To highlight the tenacious quality and uniqueness of this historically prominent mountain, Leung tuned the photo into monochrome, which manages to accentuate the layering effect and spatial depth within the bold lines of the mountain and the delicate textures of the rocks. Despite carrying a heavy sense of history, this set of photo, interestingly, is still full of uplifting spirits and graced by a light, ethereal touch often found in traditional Chinese ink paintings.
Two years later, in 2008, Leung experienced a similar sense of history while photographing the doors rebuilt by using old rocks and bricks, in an ancient village of the Cai’s family in ZhangZhou, Fujien. Under a careful scrutiny at the magnified photo, what could be seen are the remains of at least two generations backward, including the Door Gods posters, Mao’s picture, and slogans of the Cultural Revolution. Like phantoms witnessing history, these scratched-off images haunt and remind people of the changes of times.
Leung aims to illustrate a chain of historical events hidden behind the old rocks of Tai Hang Mountain and ancient doors, through expressionist and formalist techniques in photography. The concepts of ‘mountain’ and ‘door’ are tactfully linked up in this exhibition, which is layer by layer, marking a realistic record of history. Actually, who says Tai Hang ‘Mountain’ is not a ‘door’ itself, when it blocks the way of Japanese armies invading from Northeast?
Half a century was gone since the Japanese Occupation. In deep autumn of the year 2005, Hong Kong photographer Bendick Leung arrived at Tai Hang Mountain described in Zhu De’s poem. Snow didn’t fall this time, and the mountain was full of ripen haws. Leung enjoyed a quiet dusk in the mountain where he photographed around, watching the sunset. With the tilt of sunlight, the textures of the mountain rocks were gracefully outlined. The splendour of Tai Hang was captured into his camera. To highlight the tenacious quality and uniqueness of this historically prominent mountain, Leung tuned the photo into monochrome, which manages to accentuate the layering effect and spatial depth within the bold lines of the mountain and the delicate textures of the rocks. Despite carrying a heavy sense of history, this set of photo, interestingly, is still full of uplifting spirits and graced by a light, ethereal touch often found in traditional Chinese ink paintings.
Two years later, in 2008, Leung experienced a similar sense of history while photographing the doors rebuilt by using old rocks and bricks, in an ancient village of the Cai’s family in ZhangZhou, Fujien. Under a careful scrutiny at the magnified photo, what could be seen are the remains of at least two generations backward, including the Door Gods posters, Mao’s picture, and slogans of the Cultural Revolution. Like phantoms witnessing history, these scratched-off images haunt and remind people of the changes of times.
Leung aims to illustrate a chain of historical events hidden behind the old rocks of Tai Hang Mountain and ancient doors, through expressionist and formalist techniques in photography. The concepts of ‘mountain’ and ‘door’ are tactfully linked up in this exhibition, which is layer by layer, marking a realistic record of history. Actually, who says Tai Hang ‘Mountain’ is not a ‘door’ itself, when it blocks the way of Japanese armies invading from Northeast?
