Chi-jen Fang, Untitled

Art in the Classroom Installation 1996-97
Civil Engineering Building, Room B1252

The ancient Chinese believed that there are five natural elements-- minerals, plants, water, fire, and earth--that constitute the universe in an orderly manner. The idea dominates the creative process of my works.

When I start to work on a painting or a print, I customarily indulge my inspiration by letting it flow freely between ideas, strokes, layers of pigment, and/or repeated printing and letting these determine the final format of the work, just as the five natural elements spawn and stifle each other in creating the world. It may be an agonizing process or, on rare occasions, a pleasantly smooth one.

In essence, the process coheres with the way lives are produced and reproduced. However, while all beings are reproduced they are identical only in substance, but varied in form. Indeed, the five constituent elements of nature in my works revolve like the key notes in a musical compostiton. They keep echoing throughout the work but rarely are repeated in their original forms. What you see are variations of the main theme. On some occassions,the theme is clearly traceable and in other cases only well-trained eyes can single out where it is reproduced in one way or another.

I try to transcend natural dynamics that initiate new life and generate creativities into an art form which reasonates with the viewers. My paintngs, and to a lesser extent my prints, may not contain the visible form of any one specific element of nature, but the spirit inherent in that element is conveyed through the process of creation.