“The Jetavana Temple bells
ring the passing of all things.
Twinned sal trees, white in full flower,
declare the great man’s certain fall.”
—The Tale of the Heike, Book One
The phrase “Eikō seisui” (栄枯盛衰)—“wax and wane”—is inspired by the centuries-old Japanese epic The Tale of the Heike, which opens with the tolling of temple bells and the fading of blossoms, encapsulating life’s vicissitudes and nature’s ceaseless turning. It is with this sensibility that Yu Chuan names this exhibition, allowing himself to indulge in nature, with his brush roaming freely through mountains, mists, and blossoms. His landscapes become flowing representations of vitality and transience, transforming nature itself into a window onto the essence of life.
Blending Eastern and Western artistic idioms, Yu Chuan has spent years experimenting with materials, revitalizing the language of ink and oil on canvas. Each of his brushstrokes pulses with a life of its own, revealing a beauty of its kind, in swinging rhythm and tone. Nature, in his hands, moves as a current across time, generating a distinctive tension that anchors his works.
Compared to earlier series, Yu Chuan embraces the unforeseeable in this exhibition with expansive voids and desaturated color patches. These broad swathes of blankness suggest what cannot be grasped or named—empty skies, still waters, or vast, unpainted canvas— inviting the viewer into an unguarded state of contemplation. The interplay of presence and absence recalls not only a hallmark of classical Chinese painting composition but also the philosophical notion of Wú (無)—an emptiness that tolerates and embraces. Through these voided spaces, Yu Chuan evokes the uncertainty of all things, the awe before the uncontrollable, and a deep respect for the unknown.
Included in the exhibition is a series of small-format sketches, completed during his trips to Tokyo’s Shakujii Park. Created side by side with nature, these works embody Yu Chuan’s belief that sketching is the most direct conversation between artist and world. As he reflects, “Temporality is both the confinement and the liberation of sketching.” Within the framework of time, light transforms landscape, the landscape alters the viewer, and the viewer, in turn, reshapes the painting. Thus, painting becomes both captive of time, and, paradoxically, liberated by it.
In invoking Eikō seisui, Yu Chuan does not merely accept the transient and the ungovernable — he engages them with a calm philosophical poise. To move beyond the binaries of flourishing and decline is to seek an inner order, a stillness beneath the shifting surface. Only by recognizing and embracing impermanence can one begin to discover the harmony within life’s turbulence.
From Stranding Moment (2019), Non-Attachment (2020), White (2021), Sheng Sheng (2022), Samatha and Vipasyana (2023), and last year’s Let Life Be Beautiful like Summer Flowers (2024), Yu Chuan has continued, in a quiet and steady tone, to paint life’s solitude and reflections. He guides the viewer through the impermanence toward the eternal—and the tranquil peace that resides in its depths.