HAPPINESS

　　Sometimes I think about happiness and what it means to be happy.

　　Often I am happy. These are unforgettable moments, minor but important details in daily life that touch your soul. When such moments occur frequently enough, I unconsciously manage to escape reality, even reaching the point where I start to ignore real life. My soul and body reach a state of natural creativity, full of impulses and passion for life. This condition is often described as a moment of inspiration.

　　Creativity requires forthright emotions that inspire people. It is only when artists are capable and sincere in their efforts to present and share their innermost feelings that true communication occurs. Only then do paintings mediate artistic expressions and resonate with the viewer.

　　“Summer Party” was created in early autumn 2001. That summer I was on vacation in Bulgaria, a southeastern European country with beautiful landscapes and temperate climate; a perfect place for a summer holiday. During my journey I encountered many moments of real happiness: reading books in a street café during a sunny morning; listening to Jazz filling the air on a cool summer evening; or spending a peaceful day with friends and family members. Once in such happy mood, my mind became calm, and I felt elevated. When I came back to China the pressing urge to paint was unabated, reaching a point where I felt unrestrained happiness.

　　The female figures in the collection have peaceful, warm and gentle expressions in their eyes with a tiny touch of melancholy and distress. But their eyes’ expression does not so much bespeak of ordinary pain and misery. Their sorrow is caused by the insight that the human soul with all its sufferings depends on life. While drawing their beautiful slender hands and delicate bodies, how not to be touched by the recognition that life is limited by time? How not to be touched by a deep felt joy that love transcends everything?

　　Art is a visible, concrete philosophy, not based on a strict logical system, but on loyalty, honesty and a deep-seated sense of care. In spring 1999, I met the girl of “City Landscape” in front of a small barbershop in Beijing. She was a 16-17 year old teenage girl from the countryside with long, black hair, fair skin, bright eyes and a gentle, bashful smell. Unlike city girls, who would have been coddled at that age, her hands were rough, showing the signs of hard work, and her figure was ruined due to bad and unhealthy nutrition. While looking at her back, I bemoaned that life was not fair. Meanwhile, she smiled and continued doing her work under the watchful eyes of her boss. There was something touching about this scene, revealing a tiny aspect of the beauty of life. I could sense that the girl was full of hope, anxious to know what life would have in store for her. The beauty of life is that it constitutes the ultimate reality – be that in form of joyful bliss or painful darkness and desperation. No games, no tricks allowed, for one cannot cheat life. Sometimes life is like a puzzle to solve and sometimes it bears revelations.

　　Faced with the mysteries of life, human beings remain as clueless and helpless as children. While trying to figure out the rules of the game and how to escape the at times devastating power of one’s own fate, we are pursuing happiness. Despite the set backs in life and the seemingly overwhelming power of one’s destiny, nobody can take away hope of a better life. The “People’s Games,” “A Game with Themes,” “City Carnival” and the four small prints of Cards were created between 1999 and 2004, carrying on the theme of destiny. I arranged many props, such as the made up faces, the tarots, the theatrical costumes and masks, as well as the surreal backgrounds. All of the compositions, colors and figures were created instinctively, without following any stringent logic. As an artist, I enjoy indulging myself in presenting my feelings and thoughts via a suitable modality. It is through the eyes of the figures in my paintings that I attempt to communicate my inner struggles and desires.

　　In the summer of 2003 I traveled alone in Europe, carrying with me my unfinished introspection. I had no pre-arranged travel itinerary, no fixed schedules, but only ordinary longings and hopes. The surprising colors, the unhurried ease, and the touching emotions engendered by the beautiful landscapes I encountered were saturated with melancholy. Melancholy is a condition of human life that usually appears when one is confronted with pain and death. I suddenly realized that melancholy is also a concomitant of beauty and love, a fear that lingers behind happiness, a hint of the termination of the splendid moments of life. Expecting the joyful moments in life to last infinitely, I always feared the moment when happiness would vanish. I have been deeply bewildered by the fate in my personal life as an artist, and I unconsciously began to think about how to escape its control. It suddenly daunted on me that beauty and love carry a certain simplicity and that time has the right to terminate them. The fear gradually disappeared, my mind became calm and clear, leaving me with a sense of happiness. The experience described above might be an ordinary process many people go through at an early stage in life, but to me it happened when I was 34.

　　The inner landscape adapted the image of reality! The props cleared away, the doubt vanished. The paintings attained simplicity and the colors turned lucid. “White Rose in Morning Breeze” and “Red Rose in Morning Breeze” were both created in 2002, but are the beginning of a new series, although I did not realize it then. The sky, the flowers, the dress and color of the shadow are pure and bright. Even though the young girls’ expressions have a trace of melancholy, the keynote of the paintings is vitality. This change in my paintings is even more pronounced in the works of 2004. The colors in “Dreaming with Lily” and “Dreaming with Rose” are very bright, and even though the girls are sleeping, the vitality of their youthful bodies is omnipresent. The color themes and emotional range in “Lily Kissing” are obviously broader and more passionate: love, sexual desire, passion, dreams, visual beauty… Having been able to overcome personal taboos, the dominant theme of my paintings is love, pushing aside doubts about fate.

　　“Window of Siena” is my most recent and most perfect print work during my six years of involvement with graphic art. In this piece I did not cling onto my usual methods. Streaks are still very important in my composition, but they are no longer virtual lines drawn with a brush. While the colors remain bright, they at the same time convey a sense of tenderness. Quietude, gentleness, passion, the light blue sky, an open landscape, flowers, the beauty of nude bodies, loving eyes – they all testify to the happiness of my life. I have touched the boundary of fusing my soul with the creation process and in such moments I feel that the happiness of the human spirit is transcending fate.

　　Human beings have a profound ability to create and feel the power of life. This power is evidenced in philosophy as truth, in music as harmony, in personal relationships as love and in the fine arts as beauty. The enormous potential of discovering and creating beauty and love is available to everyone. I would like to call myself an educator of beauty and love, not only a painter. Art helps us overcoming fears. Life is beautiful and we should genuinely embrace it.

　　Yang Yang,

　　September 8, 2005

　　Aschaffenburg, Germany