“The first time I saw the Wulai Waterfall was over four decades ago. It was an outing arranged for university freshmen new to Taipei. There weren’t many cars at that time, and there weren't scooters flooding the streets. There weren't mobile phones, either. When we were riding the bus, we all had our eyes locked on the view out the window. It was that kind of time. The fifteen or twenty of us on the trip were all young, and we laughed the whole way. After many years went by, the Wulai Waterfall had long since faded away as a distant memory.

At the end of 2016 I payed another visit — this time with a friend from Paris. It was winter, when the weather tends to flip between rain and shine, so there weren't many tourists. We could take it easy. Rain would come and go in bursts, with the sun shining in between, lighting up the valley's trees. A fog or mist steamed off the mountains, murky in the distance, as waters roared nearby. It was a sight to behold, and memories from that first encounter suddenly rushed back to me. Having experienced temperatures switch from hot to cold and back dozens of times, it seemed as if all at once the seasons were changing before my eyes. Spring and summer, autumn and winter, all returning to view when I looked back on my life. And with the winds and the rains, there came this feeling, too. Fate leaves its mark.” - Tzu-chi Yeh

The phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty once said that “the depth of a painting is not the automatic product of perspective or photographic realism; it must be the result of struggle, a symbolic icon that goes against the foundations of reality.” Seeking depth in his paintings has always been one of Tzu-chi Yeh’s goals. Through a process of creating layered washes, Yeh establishes a sense of depth that arises out of the colors used in the painting; whether bright and exuberant or dark and gloomy, Yeh’s paintings are always in a state of transformation. The way Tzu-chi Yeh approaches the structure of his paintings is different from that of most realist artists. Yeh’s construction of realism derives from the inherent “codes” of nature, like a distant, primitive echo, an invisible source of artistic inspiration that reawakens a magic that had long since disappeared. In Yeh’s painting “Wulai Waterfullien,” the line of mountain peaks and the border of the drifting mist are fused with a soft light that penetrates the forested hills to create a faint corona effect. Employing the classical technique of using curved lines to delineate space, Yeh succeeds in creating a sense of boundless distance; the viewer of the painting is drawn into the heart of mystery, into a world that is both real and fantastical, the aesthetic significance of which can be interpreted in many different ways. The multi-layered fantastical vision that Yeh creates is full of constant change. Time moves within space; space dance with light and shadow. Everywhere there are hidden treasures and surprises that ensure one never tires of viewing the painting anew.

In the work of Tzu-chi Yeh, we see the authentic Taiwanese landscape, and we see the beauty of this landscape in a way that has never been seen before – a deeply-rooted vitality and natural beauty. We also see the steadfastness of Yeh’s faith in the power of painting, and the strength of his feelings for the land where he grew up. Yeh is like a pilgrim chanting his prayers as he walks through the mountains, or a travel intoning verse as he gazes out to sea; he is wholly focused on the search for dialog between himself and nature, and on exploring the limitless potential of the artistic soul.

Text by Kin Tsuei Chang (former Acting Dean, Graduate Institute of the Indigenous Arts, National Dong Hwa University)