The Flowing Poem: The Painting Videos of Cindy Ng Sio Ieng
Tsai Chin NI, Dean of Arts College, Tunghai University, Taiwan, 2005
Cindy Ng Sio Ieng, an artist from Macao who has lived in Taiwan for eight years, has caught considerable attention in recent years for her poetic ink paintings. Her art pieces betray a gentleness that is peculiarly Oriental; the placid nature of her extraordinarily refreshing art work has caused her to stand out among her contemporaries in the artistic circle.
An initial encounter with Cindy’s works would inevitably leave an indelible impression on the viewer. The blending tinges of ink and water slowly and quietly pile up, move about, and seep through the white sheets of paper or canvas. Although one does not detect any brush stroke or any portrayal of a subject, one cannot but make associations with past visual experience. Ink and water do not remain simply black and white, but turn into illusionary specks of floating clouds, flowing water, rolling hills, allowing one to reminisce about treasured memories or an emotional experience…. Her paintings are like a mirror, which reflects not only an immediate resemblance of her inner spirit, but also casts light on the corresponding mental state of the viewer.
Nevertheless, Cindy does not rest on her laurels in painting. In the past two years, she has extended her already considerably ripe experience in abstract ink paintings into an entirely different art medium, which is image filming. In general, particular care is devoted on visual space in drawing, but aside from the image, film production also involves motion, editing work, background music, the overall rhythm, and many other complicated manipulations. Such a shift into a different domain proves not only to be an ordeal on the artist’s wisdom, but also poses many a challenge that must be faced and resolved: technical problems to be overcome, creativity domains that must be transformed, and even the bits of thoughts and ideas that must be pieced together. Cindy candidly remarks that the endless road of creation is indeed full of hardships and challenges, especially the process of capturing the point of culmination and editing the key scenes, which all the more require a huge amount of time and effort. With regard to this, her husband Director Lan Kun-ming, who makes television commercials, has provided her with invaluable suggestions and assistance, which has facilitated her production of a series of video films that earned the affirmation and favorable comments of various circles. Not only that, one of her films, The Flow of Life, has been selected for the Best Experimental Video at the Second edition of the Audiovisual Festival Black and White in Portugal, which made her the first-ever artist from Macao to be accorded such an honor.
Cindy believes that an artistic creation is a discovery. Film production is a huge step that she has taken toward an unknown realm. Yet, when we observe her videos, we see that they have exceeded past beyond the experimental stage. Among her completed works, we can easily find a number of outstanding pieces, one of which is The Flow of Life.
The Flow of Life is about seven minutes in length. The film opens with the title in bold letters over a gray background. Then, with a nankuan musical instrument performed by Han-tang Yuefu Music Ensemble in the background, a thick brush of ink seeps from the lower left corner, and as if gradually moving toward the center of the screen, another trace of fine ink spills out from the upper left corner, forming a vividly clear and strong black-and-white contrast with the former: light vs. heavy, pale vs. dark, drifting vs. determined; carefree vs. sincere; these make us recall Shi Tao’s Essay on One Brush Stroke, where he writes, “one engenders two, two engenders three, and three engenders all.” The seemingly unending changes in Cindy’s ink painting videos are indeed unrestrained, simple, free, and slightly conforms to the profound significance of Oriental culture.
Following the continuous music, the ink blots extend onto the space gradually. The misty image of mountains and rivers becomes clearer right in front of one’s eyes. Suddenly, water (or solvent) breaks the entire composition. The light-colored ink washes back and forth the surface. The composition again falls into chaos, but through the ever changing ink and water, the viewers start to see smoky hills, misty clouds, rivers and streams, and waves and tides. Under the chaos, numerous images start to show; sometimes fast, sometimes slow. If Cindy’s paintings from the past had the linearity of a metaphor of a time capsule, then her video could be a tangible expression of moments in time.
As the film progresses, the blackness of the ink is gradually thinned by being immersed in water. The semi-transparent ink floats on the frame, as if clouds dispelled, and gradually moves toward a sense of balance. However light the color of the ink, the white screen is not anymore blank and empty, but has become a sea of tranquility and peacefulness after a period of chaos and changes.
In general, the spirit behind Cindy’s art has never changed. The consistently abstract and sketchy features have always been representative of her artistic style; at the same time, they are also the worth of her inner spirit. Such a candid portrayal of her self is similarly evident in her ink painting videos. For example, in the “Reincarnation” a bright yellow added into a contrast between black and white reinforces the visual effect between color and ink and enhances the formation of associations. Such features reveal her extraordinary disposition and creativity, and they are the very support in pushing her to persist in the treading of new ground along the path of her artistic endeavors.
Among Cindy’s ink painting videos, there are some short films wherein she still experiments with background music. As a result, she now has several of similar films with different music. As she has said, artistic creativity is an experimental process, and such a process is a phase that must be withstood by every artist in the creation of a linguistic structure for the self. In the process of exploration and reflection, the emotional impurities must be constantly weeded out and unnecessary baggage must be given up; only in such a way shall form and substance attain a state of purity and determination. This is the very feeling that her ink painting films impart on her audience; it is therefore through such that she is able to create art that possesses a timely significance and that is true to her personal values.
From painting to filming ink paintings, Cindy’s transformation and progress is clearly evident. The vigor, artistic conception, and style that she has exuded in the course of her artistic undertakings are admirable. We truly expect greater success for such an artist endowed with an idealistic personality in her pursuit of a new realm for contemporary Chinese art.