the Holy Mountain 須彌山 |painting
Life is like a path during mountain-hiking, all the way going up and down and encountering the obstacles. When we climb up to the very top of the holy mountain, we also reach the goal of life. The holy mountain” is the place for serenity in our mind. The iron wire behind the mountain is also the metaphor of life limitation. From the painting, it also reminds me of what is the true meaning of life success, and also reminds me of looking back what I came from, and where I am standing now.
LET’S FIND YOUR HOLY MOUNTAIN ON THE ROAD
By AI-CHUN HUANG
★Question: Please tell us more about yourself and where does your animation’s inspiration come from.
★AI-CHUN:
I am a multi-media artist, specializing in experimental animations, painting, digital installation, or any inspirational resources wherever and whenever on my hands. I like to put artistic and experimental elements into my artworks and share my provoking ideas to people. I graduated as a fine arts bachelor in National Taiwan Normal University, and a fine arts master in National Taiwan university of Arts.
I did few animation short films since 2018, such as “Holy Mountain”, “the Crowded Dreams” , and “the Manipulation of Life”. I chose mountain climbing journey as the metaphor to talk about social expectation, limitation and boundary when you pursue the dreams. My animation creates poetic metaphor and descriptive context with contemporary cultural images of Asian family, especially interpretation of the female role in this society, and it tells a time-and-space-limited story which everyone had before and how to escape from the limitation of time and space, and still positively dream of the ideal home and family.
By AI-CHUN HUANG
★Question: Please tell us more about yourself and where does your animation’s inspiration come from.
★AI-CHUN:
I am a multi-media artist, specializing in experimental animations, painting, digital installation, or any inspirational resources wherever and whenever on my hands. I like to put artistic and experimental elements into my artworks and share my provoking ideas to people. I graduated as a fine arts bachelor in National Taiwan Normal University, and a fine arts master in National Taiwan university of Arts.
I did few animation short films since 2018, such as “Holy Mountain”, “the Crowded Dreams” , and “the Manipulation of Life”. I chose mountain climbing journey as the metaphor to talk about social expectation, limitation and boundary when you pursue the dreams. My animation creates poetic metaphor and descriptive context with contemporary cultural images of Asian family, especially interpretation of the female role in this society, and it tells a time-and-space-limited story which everyone had before and how to escape from the limitation of time and space, and still positively dream of the ideal home and family.
I originally followed my family's and social expectation to be a fine art teacher in public school for 8 years. In 2016, I made a print painting during the busy teacher life, and that’s the first output of the idea of the holy mountain. This painting depicts the familiar scenery from my room window in the crowded Taipei city during my childhood. I saw the mountain through the iron-caged window which is especially a Taiwanese city icon, and the mountain is an imaginary metaphor of my dream and life goal, however, I was trapped in the cage. Therefore, this painting really reflected my though at that time.
Few years ago, I finally made up my mind to quit the job from my school because of the busy and stressful teacher career. I really want to get rid of the repetition of routine life and see something different. In 2016, I got selected from Fulbright association to join United States Cultural Exchange Programs, so I took a long leave from my school and started my traveling adventure. Over these years, I have more time and freedom to share my thoughts through my art practice, and i put this strong struggle feeling into my animations, and keep doing that until now.
Few years ago, I finally made up my mind to quit the job from my school because of the busy and stressful teacher career. I really want to get rid of the repetition of routine life and see something different. In 2016, I got selected from Fulbright association to join United States Cultural Exchange Programs, so I took a long leave from my school and started my traveling adventure. Over these years, I have more time and freedom to share my thoughts through my art practice, and i put this strong struggle feeling into my animations, and keep doing that until now.
★Question: Can you talk about why you choose mountain as a main images ?
★AI-CHUN:
The mean idea of animation, “The holy mountain” is from the Buddhism philosophy, “ the Mount Meru”, it is the center of the world. It’s also a metaphor of the summit of human beings’ life journey and the place for serenity in mind. This artwork is inspired by my traveling experiences of mountain hiking in Jade Mountain in Taiwan and the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. There are so many triangle icons to imply into the holy mountain, it is just like people who pray for god with this gesture, two hands holding closely just like a triangle mountain. Life is like a path during mountain-hiking, all the way going up and down and encountering the obstacles. And climb up to the very top of the holy mountain, the goal of life.
In my childhood memory, I always sit in front of my window which is surrounded by the iron bars cage, although it looked beautiful, and I watched the city scenery through the cage window. It seemed like I was limited in an iron cage and imagine another scenery in my mind. Sometimes I dreamed of a holy mountain in front of me which is made of concrete jungle buildings. The limitation for me is just like social expectation and judgement which made me limited. And windows is a transition between the real and mental space. It brings me to another space, it can be the past, now and the future, somewhere I dream of. I also choose wire fence which is usually seen on the top of house wall. This icon strongly represents the bounded social status.
At the end of animation, I bring the mountain scenery into people’s eye, just like your vision in mind, praying for the peaceful life mountain.
★AI-CHUN:
The mean idea of animation, “The holy mountain” is from the Buddhism philosophy, “ the Mount Meru”, it is the center of the world. It’s also a metaphor of the summit of human beings’ life journey and the place for serenity in mind. This artwork is inspired by my traveling experiences of mountain hiking in Jade Mountain in Taiwan and the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. There are so many triangle icons to imply into the holy mountain, it is just like people who pray for god with this gesture, two hands holding closely just like a triangle mountain. Life is like a path during mountain-hiking, all the way going up and down and encountering the obstacles. And climb up to the very top of the holy mountain, the goal of life.
In my childhood memory, I always sit in front of my window which is surrounded by the iron bars cage, although it looked beautiful, and I watched the city scenery through the cage window. It seemed like I was limited in an iron cage and imagine another scenery in my mind. Sometimes I dreamed of a holy mountain in front of me which is made of concrete jungle buildings. The limitation for me is just like social expectation and judgement which made me limited. And windows is a transition between the real and mental space. It brings me to another space, it can be the past, now and the future, somewhere I dream of. I also choose wire fence which is usually seen on the top of house wall. This icon strongly represents the bounded social status.
At the end of animation, I bring the mountain scenery into people’s eye, just like your vision in mind, praying for the peaceful life mountain.
AI-CHUN freely uses different materials for experiments, and she does digital animations from hand-drawings, or use collage skills to incorporate metaphors into a story , and even extend to interactive installations. She chooses “ video poem” to record her life scenarios, from small to big perspectives, therefore, AI-CHUN interprets those memories recorded from her self-journey into meaningful scenery.