At Seventy, From the Heart — Yang Po-Lin at Seventy
Exhibition Period｜2024/10/26～11/19
Yang Po-Lin was born in 1954 in Jinhu Village, Kouhu Township, Yunlin County, near the sea. At the age of seventeen, his raw artistic talent first emerged through his work Self-Portrait, which earned outstanding recognition and marked the beginning of a remarkable artistic journey spanning sculpture, painting, and writing. “Yang Xiang,” another artistic persona of Yang Po-Lin, was born in the earthen courtyard of a traditional sanheyuan residence, where he traced characters and images into the soil with branches in hand. Through this connection between “word, image, and form” and the land itself, a resonance emerged between the artist and the earth, giving birth to the floating planet known as Yang Po-Lin / Yang Xiang.
Dialogue has always been the central pursuit of Yang Po-Lin’s work. The language of his creations originates from the sea and later becomes immersed in landscapes and mountains. The embrace of the earth has provided him with endless imagination and longing, while the spirit of nature allows the untamed horse within him to run freely through the soul. Maternal love remains his only refuge. Like a floating planet, he gathers artistic energy into himself, reflecting a constant radiance while always yearning to root himself deeply within heaven and earth.
After six decades of artistic refinement, works such as Sorrow led him to abandon rigid formal frameworks and instead devote himself to the essence of materials. Through this process, he refined an artistic life that begins From Zero, embracing Amazing Grace like drinking from a sweet spring. Stainless steel and bronze, bamboo rich with生命力, and acrylic painting all became key media in his creations. The earth that nurtures all living things forms the horizon of his art, while the spirituality of water becomes the sea level of his materials. Oyster strings scattered across black sandy shores and the rhythmic rise and fall of woven bamboo express the pulse of the world through bamboo’s ancient and romantic Eastern language.
For Yang Po-Lin, heaven and earth are architecture, and the world itself is clothing. Faced with turbulence and change, he paints Coming and Going; even amid Tectonic Shifts, he continues to Rock the Landscape. With fluidity resembling ink painting, he expresses both passion and madness toward life, allowing the artistic spirit of Yang Xiang to flow endlessly like a river in spring. Smooth flowing curves and solid bronze, delicate bamboo language and resilient bamboo forms, the breathing of all things and the movement of layered colors—all these contrasting elements merge into one within his artistic creations. Beneath the rugged exterior lies a tenderness as gentle as water. Stability and exile, desire and meditation, the contradictions between “hunter” and “bird” together construct the spiritual world of Yang Po-Lin’s Yang Xiang.
Exhibition Highlights