Yan, Allow Yourself the Time to Uncover Life’s Hidden Treasures

Ballpoint pen, gold leaf on paper mounted on aluminum panel (with aluminum frame)

I have long focused on Taiwanese folk traditions as the subject of my work. By poring over books from the Japanese colonial era, I observed that while the forms of worship have changed little over the past century, their visual aesthetics have gradually become more vulgarized. I continue to work with the meticulous language of ballpoint pen lines to depict the connection between people and faith, layering distressed gold and silver leaf to evoke the erosion of time. These works are both a gaze toward tradition and a question posed to contemporary aesthetics, seeking to call back the solemnity and purity we once possessed.