. Z E N I T H

SOLO EXHIBITION AT MILLAN, SÃO PAULO, BR

PH: JULIA THOMPSON

TEXT BY MATEUS NUNES

I thought

the fall would

kill me

but it only

made me real¹

"Conflating melancholy and grandeur, Fran Chang utilizes the genesis of placid places as a sheltering device. In her painted landscapes, states of mind ungraspable by language are portrayed through erosions, dawns, and intimate cliffs. Tactile geographies are elevated on mysterious planes, hovering between nonexistence and promise, escape and reunion, vastness and brevity. Nature floats in silk, allowing itself to be traversed by light as it manifests itself solidly and permanently, reflecting the uncertainty of the paths that can be experienced in these liminal scenarios. The void is reiterated by the presence of the place, just as the escape from reality is a fabrication device enabling a full existence. In Zenith, Chang, of Taiwanese origin, accesses a darkness long avoided and finally welcomed.

More than the contemplation of mountain ranges, glacial archipelagos, and firmaments, landscape for the artist is the mouth for cathartic and emancipatory feelings, primarily linked to the Asian diaspora.

Faced with the infinite dilation that forms the horizon, one is confronted with the mirroring of subjective experiences, questioning the solidity of established truths and one’s own desires. Chang, in facing this gigantic restlessness, delved into systematic studies in astrophysics and astronomy at the university, in order to tension established beliefs and assimilate human frivolity in relation to the cosmos. She found herself, therefore, with possible inner immensities long denied, igniting a revisit to episodes of her own history—and the scars and resistances of Taiwanese migration by her mother—observing colossal geological activities, such as the untamed effusiveness of volcanoes and the sinuous and trembling dances of the aurora borealis. Cosmological and geographical metaphors mimic losses, triumphs, rediscoveries, and traumas, as if to say: I contain this within me.

Patient and silent, Chang’s works aim to externalize emotional atmospheres with disciplined and honest posture towards painting itself.

The choice of silk as a painting support came about by always finding herself surrounded by this fabric at home, as her mother, even before immigrating to Brazil, favored it in sewing her own clothes in a libertarian Taiwan. As for the reverence to Chinese artistic traditions, Chang approaches the rigor of the gogbi technique, especially in the detailed brushstrokes with realistic intention. The choice of contemplative landscapes approaches the shan shui tradition, in which mountains, streams, and waterfalls are depicted, with sensitivity to capturing the rhythms of nature, energetic fluidities, and the radiant possibility of the soul...."