Golden touch... 金華舞墨臻寶展 by 林伯禧 Lin Pa-Hsi art exhibition

On my daily walk, I went past this Hengdeli watch store on Zhongxiao Dunhua very often... and sat in front of it stealing a smoke at times.

One day, I saw on the poles the signs of an art exhibition "金華舞墨臻寶展" by 林伯禧 Lin Pa-Hsi... with the paintings looking all golden... with the notion of Gold making my self-notion already gotten inflated. 8-O lol

The exhibition is located on the second floor of the store and it will run till the end of June.

When I finally made it to the exhibition one day, this nice lady gave me a guided tour and told me a lot about how the artworks have come into being such as the setting, the process, and the ingredients.  For instance, when the artist is painting, he likes to listen to music and drink either good wine or tea. 

One set of paints in exhibition is the "百花系列" (Hundred-flower series--my translation).  A series of 100 small painting of the flowers.  Also, the paints used in these paintings are no ordinary paints... let along the touches of 99% gold spreading over the artwork as a final touch... colors such as them nice looking blue... derived from corals...

白魚 (white fish) is 林伯禧 Lin Bo Xi.

百花系列 (Hundred-flora series--my translation)

There are several periodical functions that took place in concert with the exhibition... live music performance, talks, wine tasting workshops, and a conversation with the artist 林伯禧 Lin Pa-Hsi himself.

I made a point of attending one of the events on June 14th where the pianist Kimball Gallagher, who is in the venture of his 88 concert tour around the world (!!!), performed Chopin... Saloon style!



The gentleman sitting on the left side of the screen in the above clip was the speaker 陸潔民 who later gave a talk on art appreciation and investment.

I was informed that day that there would be a wine tasting workshop and a meeting the artist session today... and I gladly went with my sister.

We enjoyed the Wine Tasting 101 workshop provided by Rocky Wang and 李清蘭 very much. We also tried very hard to learn the 123 of wine tasting the Dewey approach... learning by doing... sipping through 2008 Chateau Rieussec R de Rieussec Blanc Sec, Bordeaux and 2009 Château Peymouton with all due diligence! Trying to figure out the color, body, flavor, etc.

Wine Tasting 101 Workshop

While absorbing the lessons learned through Wine Tasting 101 via the constructive approach, there came this opportunity I have been looking forward to... meet the artist!  There is something absolutely exhilarating about the notion of meeting the creators themselves!

Absolutely love this picture I got to take haphazardly... In the background was a movie filmed through a camera some time ago when the artist had been in the moment of creating an artwork while, in the foreground, the artist was speaking of his process of creation.  The two camera in front of me... both trying to capture that present... Would love to have shifted my grandpa canon a bit to the right to bring the remaining part of the red camera in front of me in... though... that moment in time has passed.

The painting in the back, the artist holding a glass of red wine, though no music in the background...  enough contextual clues to envision the process of unfolding for these art works.

After the interview, they opened the floor for question...

I was told that the artist would spend days staring at the flower till he finally got the essence of the flower, and that's when he started to paint.  So, I asked him about his staring at the flower activity.

Apparently, the story was that, one day, he was amongst friends and someone brought in 野薑花 (White Ginger Lili).  A poet came up with a poem on site immediately... yet, since it takes far more work to get something painted out, the poet offered to buy Li Pa-Hsi's painting if he could get one done within a certain time from.  Since Mr. Li was not as familiar with the flowers at that point, he went home and stared at the White Ginger Lili (and get new ones every 2-3 days) till he finally got the paintings out something like a month later.  And, for the next few years, he painted far more White Ginger Lili and then peony (牡丹)...

According to him, since he has learned the different types of flowers pretty well now, no longer does he need to spend days staring at them flowers when working on the flora paintings nowadays. Already have sufficient images encoded in the Long term memory! (Wow... I can hardly visualize 2-3 kinds of flowers completely in my head!)

One thing that got my attention when discovering the exhibition was them touches of Gold... and I asked him why.  Apparently, it might have started with simply a kimoji kinda thing and, also, "Gold is precious and goes along with the precious artwork!"

Since I am still stuck at the lowest rung of the SES ladder, I got the artist to autograph on the catalog. 8-X lol

The 金華舞墨臻寶展 by 林伯禧 Li Pa-Hsi is running through the end of June.  Thereafter, Mr. Li's artworks will be coming to various countries such as in Biennale d'Aquarelle à Brioude en France.  Bon Chance!