Yi Xiang

Meng Xianglong or Yi Xiang (his Buddhist name) tries to understand the world and life by way of Buddhist dharma through art and painting. The Zen culture stresses that without one word, everything is included. Meng's paintings are the communication of enlightened souls. They are there for appreciation and understanding by those who have same innerness and insightful karma.

In the paintings besides lotus, ruyi, clouds, rain, ladders, masks, Buddha, and light columns are the pure sky, showing a kind of spiritual imagery. Meng calls these works Wonderful Insight. Except this, no any word, but for the seers to feel them. His every painting acts as a Buddhist hymn, as an epitome of ancient mysterious culture of naturalist worship. Shadows, lines, colors are organically combined, symbols and significance are perfectly unified for elevating the seers' aesthetic experience to trans-historical space and time, then to forever and unlimitedness. Thus, the purity, equality, and sublimity are perceived. Indeed, this is a series of superrealist paintings with the themes of Buddhist world. Buddha means instant enlightenment. In the nirvana, it refers to no-life-no-death, in the self-examination, it directs to spiritual unlimitedness. The painter tries to describe all these symbolism to express subjective emotions as to create a forever moment.

Painting means a lot and even hides something unrecognizable. After the up and down of uncertain years, Meng decided to keep himself at home declining any visits, but were involved into painting and thinking, not only on how to paint, but also on the differences of cultures, aiming at finding his own ways of expression from the jungles of modernist and postmodernist clamor. He tries to have that from the well-established heritage of Chinese culture. When he studies the oracle words, he is surprised to have found some works meaning a beginning. It is formatted as a man-head, referring to initial, and beginning. He, therefore, is enlightened that everything must be reduced to its origin. During this period, he knows a Buddhist teacher, and he learns something from him. In the meditation, Meng finds his past ridiculous but now he comes to a state of calmness. So he becomes a Buddhist at home reading Buddhist scripts and being a vegetarian and painting. Currently he has been doing this for eight years.

Works

Biography

Meng Xianglong was born in Shangyi County, Hebei Province in 1962. He graduated from School of Light Industry of Hebei majoring in fine arts in 1983. Then after some years of working, he entered the Central Academy of Fine Arts of Beijing, and studies in the Department of Mural Painting for two years. Then he became a professional artist. He lived in different places where artists come together, so he shared bitter life with other hard-working artists, and insisted on artist's dream. He then took part in the exhibitions one by one. He was known for his use of ancient symbols of Chinese culture. In 2002, he departed Beijing and returned his home town Xuanhua for a new round of exploration.