2025

The CONDITION OF LIFE-BECOMING

This collection is about grief and privately mourning over vanished, as much as about rekindling hope. When starting the series, I did not completely plan out the quantity and composition to each piece, leaving rooms for experimentation and spontaneity. Utilizing both old and new motifs, each piece is crafted with very personal episode related to my past experience.

I used East Asian mineral pigments (岩彩 or 岩絵具) to explore the emotional and psychological dimensions of diasporic identity. The series draw from Cantonese proverbs, Buddhist mythology, and bird imagery to examine transformation, alienation, and resilience. The material properties of pigment—layered, slow, and resistant—mirror the fragmented, non-linear process of self-making in transnational life.

The feetless bird 無腳雀仔, a poignant Cantonese idiom brought to life in Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild(1990), symbolizes a drifter who cannot settle, destined to fly endlessly until death.

“Perhaps I didn’t choose this way of life—I only fear that if I ever land, I’ll become just like everyone else.”

The Kalavinka 迦陵頻伽/妙音鳥, a celestial bird from Buddhist mythology, is renowned for its transcendent voice, a sound said to surpass all others in beauty and grace. In this work, the Kalavinka has its head turned, capturing it in a moment of quietude.This portrayal reflects a state where the bird’s song—the very essence of its existence—remains unspoken.

Bird of Departure embodies contemplation regarding eventual departure…

What is the form of his soul?

How does it take flight beyond this world?

“Bird of Descending”, in contrast to “The Bird of Departure”, envisions the moment of arrival—a soul in the process of taking shape. Does a god-like presence might accompany his soul, guiding him across realms.

Together, these works meditate on the thresholds of existence, where beings dissolve and reform—echoing cycles of departure, rebirth, and the impermanence of form.

Jīvajīvaka is a two-headed bird in Buddhist mythology. The bird ultimately dies from an internal conflict between the two heads—a metaphor for the destruction that arises from inner or communal division.

This piece reflects a hard-earned realization: that the aura we carry—fear or faith—shapes the future we enter.

To live fully is to move forward with a kind of blind but not reckless animal-like instinct. Like an animal feeling its way through the dark, we must keep moving with raw optimism, even when nothing is certain.