One and a half week has passed in a blur. Within the time span, I have gone on a corporate shoot, learnt new things (hopefully), had a medical check up, dulled and wished my weekends away playing Sims 3, went to Jia Aili's Seeker of Hope in Singapore Art Museum - which I proceeded to lavish and stand in awe at his oil paintings and then mope over my pathetic existence.
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| Untitled (2010 - 2012) |
The nights are a blur. I stand under the blanketed night sky, the stars punctuating and glaring at the infinite, slippery spaces between my mind. Her glare and light, a harsh reminder of my belittlement and her grandeur. I am incomparable and insignificant. I am a nothing in her vastness.
寻找光的探者. Seeker of Hope. I fear the English translation is at best, clumsy and flimsy for it fails to incorporate the nuances of the Chinese character "光". 光 means light but it is more than that. As much as I love the English language in all its glory, simplicity and darling beauty, it can never attempt to flesh out the layered flavours and nuances of Mandarin. For a Chinese, my command of Mandarin is terribly poor (I like to blame the robotic and education system in stripping my enthusiasm and love for the language when I was a kid but as much weight and truth they hold, they are merely excuses) but I appreciate the poetic and visual beauty of the language.
天, sky.
Do you know why it is written as such? It is actually an amalgamation of the Chinese character big and one or a vertical line - to represent the expansiveness of the sky. Infinity.
光 in literal terms means light but it is more than light, representing hope.The art pieces and title encapsulates the essence of hope, the mystery of light and the vain and almost futile desire of the seeker. It contains the perfect paradox - the seeker's beaming hopes in fulfilling his seeming quest and search for his purpose but his held knowledge that this search is arduous and never ending for we have no true purpose in life. The quest or life is ironically a meaningless and empty struggle for meaning.
It is.
Infinity - expansive space, millions of stars, dead and blown. We are the stardust living on stolen, misplaced time, long gone and forgotten from light years.
Sometimes, I get these thoughts bubbling in my head and I grasp and try to hold on to the flits and passing of any purpose and meaning. I put meanings into my actions, trying my best to justify the worth in my actions and existence. But at the end of the day, I am alone and terrified. After all, we live on stolen lives and time.
Maybe, that's why I feel so much for his works. I am also a seeker, 探者, seeking for my light. I hope wherever I go, I can find and carve my meaning.
Advices for the struggling student:
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