Shan Shui

作品賞析

Yang Che-Yi, an artist born in Yilan, is particularly sensitive to changes in the natural environment. He originally studied civil engineering and geology, but after he started getting interested in photography, he had the idea of photographing mines, and he continued to do so for more than ten years. These four black-and-white photographs depict changes in the landscape over a four-year span at a limestone mine site. He photographed using a technique that imitated the landscape paintings of the Song dynasty. Through the lens, he recorded the broad, flat expanse of the landscape after it was mined according to the standard operating procedures of the Taiwan mining team. Yang Che-Yi shot his photographs using a small aperture and adjusted the lighting according to the conditions of the landscape and light, striving to present the image with the quietest effect, without a trace of artificiality. In these works, viewers can appreciate the compositional ingenuity of his handling of the level distance, high distance, and deep distance views, and of artistic concepts recalling the monumental landscape paintings of the Song dynasty.