Charwei Tsai – Page 4

Five Sky Dancers

Five Sky Dancers Series, 2021 - Drawings with natural pigment extracts

Five Sky Dancers Series, 2021
Drawings with natural pigment extracts from cinnabar, azurite, malachite, orpiment, and amphibole & ink on rice paper
180x180cm
Collection of Live Forever Foundation, Taiwan

This is a series of drawings made in homage to the five wisdom dakinis, which literally means sky dancers and represent the feminine energy in the tantric tradition. “It is a raw, naked cognizance, like a baby: unaltered, uncontrived, un-fabricated, and uneducated,” as described by a tantric master. Each dakini belongs to a realm with a symbolic direction, color, skandha, element, emotion, and a principal deity. For example, the west realm is represented by the color red, the element of fire, the skandha of scent, the emotion of desire and the principal deity of Amitabha.

The dakini in this realm is Pandara who is the metaphor for the antidote to desire that is the wisdom of observation and her mantra is written on the red-colored drawing. In this series, Tsai also experiments with using natural pigments extracted from minerals such as amphibole, azurite, cinnabar, orpiment, and malachite that are used in Buddhist caves of Dunhuang where the tantric tradition had spread.

Ndewa & Hamanangu Series

Ndewa & Hamanangu Series, 2021 - Ikat textile woven with hand-spun cotton yarn, hand made

Ndewa & Hamanangu Series, 2021
In collaboration with Alia Swastika and Nency Dwi Ratna
Ikat textile woven with hand-spun cotton yarn, hand made,
sourced plant-based dye from indigo, morinda, and turmeric from Sumba
124x265cm each piece

Ndewa & Hamanangu, is a series of ikat textiles made in collaboration with a young weaver Nency Dwi Ratna from the island of Sumba in Indonesia through the support of curator Alia Swastika. For this ten-month project, the weaver closely followed traditional methods passed down through her mother. As a tribute to the tradition, hand-spun yarn from locally sourced cotton and plant based-dye from hand-picked native plants such as indigo, turmeric, and morinda took the form of a local totem ‘lobster’ that symbolizes re-generation.

Every step of the preparation follows the natural rhythms of the land. What seems to be mundane labor manifests into sacred geometries representing the interdependence of micro and macro cosmologies. This is part of a series of project where Tsai works with craftswomen in rural regions to preserve their knowledge and skills of working with plant-based and locally sourced materials that are otherwise quickly dying out.

Kalachakra

Kalachakra, 2021 - A pair of hand-crafted and embroidered felt from Mongolia

In collaboration with Khorolsuren Dagvajantsan & Tsaschikher Tsagaankhuu
A pair of hand-crafted and embroidered felt from Mongolia
180cm in diameter each
Commissioned by Live Forever Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan

“We Mongolians have been nomads with a long-standing nomadic culture throughout history. But today, with the rapid development of science and technology, people are shifting to a sedentary lifestyle. We started these sewn rugs five years ago because we noticed the process of our traditions being forgotten day by day.

I first learned the main technique for making traditional felt rugs through sewing and stitching them together from my mother. My mother was a Mongolian shoemaker for twenty years. Since I was a child, she introduced me to traditional lifestyles, nomadic handcrafts and taught me how to do things with quality.

We make felt from Mongolian sheep’s wool, which is the main raw material for rugs. Wool is first soaked in water and made through traditional techniques. Many elements of Mongolian ornaments, rams, mythology and symbolism are depicted on the felt rugs.

In the process of sewing, I hope to be absorbed by the seeds of my mind, intellect and soul. The whole process of creation is full of ease and I always feel the warm positive energy.

For the first time in this work, the “Kalachakra Mandala” or “Wheel of Time” was depicted. Because I had heard and seen Kalachakra as a Buddhist philosophy as a symbol of the new circular age or era, I meditated on “time” during the creation, and felt the vortex of life, including the circular shape of the “sun.” That’s why I want to compare it to the great Mongolian long song “Uyahan zambuutiviin naran” (“Under the Sun of Placid World”).

For the nomads, I once again realized that the concept of time, past – present – future, is inevitably interrelated to the astronomy, the sun and the moon, and the rhythms of the earth and the sky.”

Khorolsuren Dagvajantsan

The Womb & the Diamond

The Womb & The Diamond – Installation made of handblown glass, mirrors, and a diamond

The Womb & The Diamond, 2021
Installation made of handblown glass, mirrors, and a diamond 300x600cm
Commissioned by Live Forever Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan
Photo by Anpis Wang, Courtesy of Live Forever Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan

The Womb & The Diamond is a large-scale installation composed of an assemblage of over a thousand pieces of glass and mirrors. The diagram is made in reference to The Womb & The Diamond Realm mandalas from Koyasan in Japan. Two principal objects are placed on each side of the mandala: a womb-like glass piece blown by renown Buddhist teacher and filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche after a recitation of the Dependent Arising Mantra representing all-encompassing space and a diamond representing indestructibility. Known for writing mantras on ephemeral materials, for this project, Tsai experiments with using breath and the sound vibration of reciting mantras to form each glass piece.

The Womb & the Diamond

The Womb & The Diamond, Live Forever Foundation, Taiwan

The Womb & The Diamond
January 31 ~ May 30, 2021
Vital Space & Art Corner at Taichung National Theater, Taiwan
Curated by Dr. Jau-lan Guo

The Womb & The Diamond is a solo exhibition by Taipei-based artist Charwei Tsai and curated by Dr. Jau-lan Guo at Vital Space and Art Corner at Taichung National Theater in Taiwan. This exhibition presents a series of newly commissioned projects inspired by personal pilgrimages that the artist took in the past three years. Through these journeys, Tsai traces the wisdom tradition of tantra that is stemmed in fifth century India and through the medieval trade routes across western China, it reached furthest east to Japan, south to Java, and north to Mongolia.

The central piece of this exhibition is a six by three meter installation made with glass and mirrors in reference to The Womb & The Diamond Realm mandalas from Koyasan in Japan. Known for writing mantras on ephemeral materials, for this project, Tsai experiments with using breath and the sound of reciting one-syllable mantras to form each glass piece. These captured mantras are then placed on a circular mirror as a part of the larger mandala. Throughout the the exhibition period, visitors are invited to take a flower petal and visualize it as an entire cosmos and dedicate it to victims of the pandemic by placing the petals around the mandala.

Along her journeys, Tsai encountered rural communities many of whom are under the threat of losing their livelihoods of working with natural materials and traditional crafts to hyper consumerism. As a way to honor gentler ways of working with the Earth, Tsai collaborates with craftswomen from Indonesia and Mongolia to create a body of woven and sewn mandalas. Ndewa & Hamanangu, is a series of ikat textiles made with a young weaver Nency Dwi Ratna from the island of Sumba in Indonesia through the support of curator Alia Swastika. For this ten-month project, the weaver closely followed traditional methods passed down through her mother. As a tribute to the tradition, hand-spun yarn from locally sourced cotton and plant based-dye from hand-picked native plants took the form of a local totem ‘lobster’ that symbolizes re-generation. Every step of the preparation follows the natural rhythms of the land. What seems to be mundane labor manifests into sacred geometries representing the interdependence of micro and macro cosmologies.

At Taichung National Theater’s Art Corner, Tsai will create site-specific drawings that fills the seven by six meter large window panels of the opera house with rice paper painted with natural pigments made from vegetable dye mixed with crushed shell powder. As a durational performance, she will write the Heart Sutra on the drawing.The entire performance will be documented and published online. Additional drawings, using pigment extracts from minerals found in the cave paintings along the trade routes where Heart Sutra travelled through from India to East Asia during the Tang Dynasty, will also be exhibited at the main space.

A publication in collaboration with Zolo Press based in Brussels & Mexico City will be released in July 2021.