Artist Statement: Dialogue with Nature

Mountains and water have become a metaphor for a mixture of my childhood memories and a man’s nostalgia. For me, painting mountains and water everyday is like a dialogue with my inner feelings through nature.

My landscape painting meditates on my relationship with my surroundings, articulating a perspective of inner peace, serenity and sometimes solitude.

A monologue becomes a dialogue with nature, not only helping me to express something deep at the bottom of my heart — something which I don’t usually want to verbalize, but also opening a gate for my inner feelings to be comforted. My landscape painting has been simplified to basic forms and shapes for compositional and structural purposes and meditates on my relationship with my surroundings, articulating a perspective of inner peace, serenity and sometimes solitude.

During the long process of searching for the mysterious interrelationship between my inner feelings and the formal elements of modern art, such as colour, form, space, and light, my art is gradually created with mood, hope, and poetry. Through studying the relationship between the metaphor that I discovered from within my subconscious and art’s formal elements, I wish to create my own art.

— 羅世長, Shyh-Charng Lo

羅世長藝術理念

全力專職藝術創作不覺已過了24年。猛回首，發現窗外的山水依然是我這些年來藝術生涯的靈感泉源與創作主題。每天試圖努力回歸到藝術發生的原點，去凝視自然，傾聽自己，以日常生活環境所見，所思，所感出發。用簡單的造型與構圖，透過藝術的手法給予每一張畫最大的深意。日復一日，一生磨一劍，有如禪修。這種傻勁，這種探索的行為與精神，不覺使我想起當代藝術中的行為藝術與觀念藝術。

藉著探索內在情感與形，色，光等現代藝術基本元素之間的奧秘關係，我那帶有情境，希望，詩意的藝術得以逐漸呈現出來。也在這一系列的研究過程中建立起自己的藝術風格。山水因為隔著距離的遠望與凝視，以及經過長時間的對話與自省，沉澱與冥思，一個東方人的文化鄉愁也就毫不自覺地流露在靜謚幽微的精神隱喻裡。

畢竟，繪畫只是藝術家氣質的呈現而已。

2013 於溫哥華

羅世長
Born in Nagano, Japan, 1945
Moved to Taiwan with parents, 1946
Arrived in Canada for graduate studies, 1974

B.A. Anthropology/Archaeology, National Taiwan University, 1970
M.A. Anthropology/Archaeology, The University of British Columbia, 1977
M.M.S. Museum Studies, University of Toronto, 1983

Solo Exhibitions

2013 Art Beatus Gallery, Peel Street Space, Hong Kong
2012 Providence University Art Centre, Taichung, Taiwan
2012 Hsinchu County Cultural Affairs Museum of Art, Hsinchu, Taiwan
2009 99° Art Centre, Shanghai, China
2009 Redhouse Museum, Guangzhou, China
2008 Coven Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2008 Art Beatus Ltd., Vancouver, Canada
2007 99° Art Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
2007 Art Beatus Gallery, Central, Hong Kong
2007 Asian Research Centre, The Universary of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
2005 Simon Patrich Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2005 Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2004 TaKu Art Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan
2003 “Conciousness”, Art Beatus, Vancouver, Canada
2002 “Dialogue with Nature”, Gallery OM, Yokohama, Japan
2000 The C. K. Choi Building, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
2000 “Dialogue with Nature”, Cambridge Art Centre, Vancouver, Canada
2000 “Dialogue with Nature”, Richmond Art Gallery (at Gateway Theatre), Vancouver, Canada
1998 Simon Patrich Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
1998 “Dialogue with Nature”, Malaspina Printmaker Society, Vancouver, Canada
1998 Caves Art Centre, Taipei and Hsinchu, Taiwan
1997 Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
1996 Caves Art Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
1996 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
1996 “Dialogue with Nature”, Seymour Art Gallery, North Vancouver, Canada
1994 East Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan
1994 Simon Patrich Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
1993 Different Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
1992 Petley Jones Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
1991 Asia Art Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
1986 ROM Social Club, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
1984 ROM Social Club, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada

Awards

• 1996 — Bronze Medal from The Lexicographical Work Editorial Department of China International Famous Person Research Institute, Beijing, China
• 1985 — The “Best Landscape” award from the Willowdale group of Artists show, North York YMCA, Toronto, Canada
• 1963 — The 1st place award of the Student’s Fine Arts Contest of the Provincial Hsin-chu High School, Taiwan
• 1954 — The 1st place award of the Student’s Fine Arts Contest of Hsin-chu county, Taiwan