The story begins with a journey to Taiwan.
In a gallery of the National Palace Museum, the artist came upon a century-old blue-and-white porcelain vase, resting quietly in its glass case. The indigo glaze spreading across its surface seemed to open a rift in time, drawing her thoughts back a hundred years, into the deep, hushed years of the old court — the elegance that time leaves behind, and the quiet that remains when splendor has faded.
The encounter echoed in her heart long after. Back in America, that porcelain blue still lingered, impossible to forget. So she took up her brush and her flowing inks, and tried to recover the stirring of that memory on the canvas.
The rich, deep blue at the center of the painting is the still heart of the glaze on the Palace Museum's vase — the point where a century of layered years begins in memory. And the round traces of ink spreading outward, layer upon layer, light passing through them, are like the five shades of ink wash: the steadiness of classical blue-and-white porcelain, transformed into the flowing rhythm of modern abstraction.
Every blending and blooming of the ink is a gentle dialogue across East and West. With a thoroughly modern hand, the artist gathers her memories of the Taiwan journey, her reverence for traditional craft, and her reverie across a hundred years of time, and sets them down as these azure flowers on the canvas — flowers that will never wither.
If this piece speaks to you, you are welcome to write to me.