KAOHSIUNG – TAIWAN

Introduction by Yaman Shao
Curator of HOPE

Director of ALIEN Art Museum

HOPE explores how the power of art can provide us with peace in the face of impermanence in a subtle way.

Caroline Halley des Fontaines is an artist who has recently attracted global attention in the field of photography and art. The photographic series "Lightscape", supported by Emerige foundation in France, is a series of works created by the artist visiting the seas, glacial lakes, the northern areas of the earth, capturing the color of natural landscapes (oceans), creating a second view of observing the living nature.

For the artist, this was a process to capture the vibration of natural landscapes, which is close to her spiritual practice of meditation.

​

Caroline Halley has traveled in sparsely populated places for more than 20 years, such as Easter Island, India, Egypt, Ladakh, Central Tibet, Nepal, Kenya, Navajo lands, Galapagos Islands, etc., exploring human's sacred rituals in life. Her creative works embody the archetype of universal symbols, enabling a deeper understanding of the inner self, where the artist also found some answers about the meaning of life and spiritual practices.

Thinkers such as Carl Gustav Jung and Mircea Eliade, the founders of Analytical Psychology, showed us the collective, fictitious, and prototypical nature of life. Such as the mandala that is a spiritual symbol of world unity and interdependence. The self, the ego, we may realize, is only the tip of the iceberg of the self, the id.

In the exhibition, Halley's idea that photography as the process of capturing ideology is very experimental. She has found a way to make the natural landscape reveal true colors, through lights within a natural environment, reminding us that perception is only relative; our inner landscape manifests the sacred visual of meditation, as at the moment of interaction/unicity with nature, only energy and color are left. It is a journey of inner healing.

Through these moments of sharing, she expresses the beauty of human beings with sacred simplicity. The eternal universality she respects is not the man or woman closely related to daily life, but the medium connected with the spiritual aspect of society from the beginning to the end; therefore, it reflects the inner journey of the transformation of abstract art. As the artist said: "When people close their eyes, it is just a manifestation of silence, and there is an eternity in silence."

After the "Lightscape" project, this year Halley expects to work with the famous French astronomer Hubert Reeves under the starlight. Life is a profound mystery. Only through exploration can one grasp the creator's ingenuity.