“In April, upstream from Hualien’s Lao River, hidden in the dense forest is an ephemeral waterfall where the rousing duet scene between Mona Rudao and his father in the film “Seediq Bale” was shot, I stand on a high slope and look down on the place where the impenetrable mountain and water meet. The undulating hills, the tree copses. Fresh green buds peek out from the tips of camphor trees and sing the high notes of the start of spring. After midday, clouds and mist cover the hazy trees and bring a unique tenderness, a stirring of the spirit between man and nature.”
(Yeh Tzu–Chi, Hualien, 2012)
This is the keynote in Yeh’s artworks; each of his works is a remembrance of his family, his first love, of nostalgia, friendship, and feelings. Whether it is still–life or scenery, Yeh’s tender spirit is evident in the slow and measured journey of his paintings. They traverse through sorrow, bitterness and pain, longing and thankfulness: a sleeping goldfish, a fruit from his homeland, his mother’s camellias, the watermelon rind in summer…these are all deep and personal narratives of the artist’s emotions. Yeh Tzu–Chi’s art inherited the poetic tradition of the Chinese Tang and Song Dynasty combined with Christian wisdom, “there is a time for everything, …there is a time to be born and there is a time to die…there is a time to tear down and a time to build,…” [Ecclesiastes]. This inheritance is clear and unambiguous, and has opened a deep, straight path in the development of Taiwanese art. For one to understand Yeh’s paintings, one could explore Yeh’s fascinating life, but to truly own his art, one must truthfully face the portrait and search through one’s own life experience. It matters not whether he paints a fruit rind, or the forest edge of Shamao Mountain, or the tall banyan tree in National Cheng Kung University…(Excerpt, “Yeh Tzu–Chi: Tainan Memories”, InArt Space, Tainan)