|
|
|
In
1962, at the height of the great famine in China, an extraordinarily gifted
child was born into hardship in Xinxian, a small town in Henan Province.
Cao Yong's family, already struggling to find enough to eat, was suspected
of disloyalty to the new government simply because a great-grandparent
had once owned land, real estate, and banks, and because a grandparent
had been a warlord. During the Cultural Revolution, this background singled
the family out for harsh treatment by the Chinese authorities. Cao Yong's
family was ostracized, refused residency permits, and even denied food.
While other young children of his age started kindergarten, little Cao
Yong began working. At age five, he found himself ferrying heavy baskets
of gravel at a construction site. One day a rock pit caved in, nearly
crushing the tiny boy to death under the rubble. Luckily, he survived.
It was through drawing that Cao Yong found peace and consolation in those
difficult years, and at age eleven his talent was recognized. He began
studying with the noted artist Yu Ren from Beijing, who worked briefly
in Xinxian. The shadow of ostracism followed him even to art classes,
but Cao Yong's remarkable persistence challenged him to paint, and to
paint better, each day. In order to buy art supplies, he pawned his winter
clothes in summer, his summer clothes in winter, and often skipped meals.
He painted on any material he could find: scraps of used wrapping paper,
newspaper, discarded wooden boards. When his mother brought him a bundle
of dirty cloth which she had begged a shop clerk to give to her, Cao Yong
burst into tears of joy: at last he had canvas!
Five years later, when Cao Yong was just sixteen, his family sold their
only pig so that Cao Yong could afford to take the highly competitive
National Entrance Exam of Art Universities. But before he could reach
the capital city of Henan where the exam was to be held, his money and
documents were stolen--and so was his portfolio. Cao Yong, in desperation,
made an impassioned plea to the exam officials that he be allowed to take
the exam; when the officials relented, Cao Yong scored the highest marks
in five provinces. But it was to no avail; all the universities rejected
him because of his family background.
But Cao Yong was not defeated. A year later, he returned to take the exam
again; this time a recruiting professor defended him and pressed for his
admission to a university. Cao Yong was admitted to Henan University,
but only on the condition that he could be expelled from the school for
even the slightest misconduct. Again, Cao Yong refused to be discouraged.
Although he remained an outcast in the ideology-dominated environment,
he excelled in his art classes. Despite constant persecution and several
attempts at expulsion, he received his BFA with highest distinction in
1983.
To escape the political pressure and to pursue his love for untainted
nature and humanity, Cao Yong, now twenty-one, volunteered to go to Tibet,
where he became a professor of art at Tibet University. During his seven
years in Tibet, Cao Yong immersed himself in the spare beauty of the isolated
highlands, and embraced the distinctive Tibetan culture. With a thirsty
spirit which perhaps unconsciously divined a more fulfilling future, the
young teacher once trekked hundreds of miles over the Himalayas to the
Tibetan border and smuggled himself into neighboring Nepal, just to drink
in the air of freedom for a brief moment, before returning to Tibet.
In order to copy the remains of Tibet's ancient wall paintings, Cao Yong
visited almost every monastery and temple in the entire region, and produced
hundreds of paintings. To study the prehistoric cave paintings of Tibet,
Cao Yong, accompanied only by a horse, a dog, and a gun for hunting, lived
alone in deserted mountain caves for nearly a year.
Cao Yong's legendary experience in Tibet resulted in a remarkable series
of paintings entitled The Split Layer of Earth: Mount Kailas. In this
series, the artist not only addresses the conflicts between the physical
and the spiritual, but also plunges into the deeper layer of sociopolitical
and religious struggles in Tibet as well as in our world. In the spring
of 1989, Cao Yong held his first one-man show at Beijing Artist Gallery.
Over forty intensely emotional paintings shocked the Beijing art circle.
The exhibit was covered by China Daily, Beijing Review, Reuters, Agence
France-Presse, The Canada Post, Asahi Shimbun of Japan, and other major
international news agencies. Foreign ambassadors and representatives of
foreign business organizations in Beijing attended the opening of the
exhibition, and Cao Yong was invited to lecture at the embassies of France,
Spain, Mexico, and Bolivia. However, Cao Yong's success alarmed the Chinese
authorities. Beijing police arrested him, shut down the gallery, then
confiscated and burned seven of Cao Yong's unsold paintings.
But while under escort to the police station, Cao Yong managed to escape.
With his fiancée Aya Goda, a Japanese art student, Cao Yong set off on
a perilous eight-month journey as a fugitive. On the run through China,
the couple was nearly killed in a car accident. Constantly blackmailed
by local officials, plagued with serious illnesses, the two had to resort
to begging to survive. Finally, in 1989, with the help of the Japanese
Embassy, they were married and escaped to Japan.
This journey of tribulation was described by Aya Goda in her book Escape.
Published in Japan in 1995 by Bungei Shunju Publishing, Escape electrified
readers and critics, and was awarded the Grand Prize for Non-Fiction from
Kodansha Book Publishers, Japan's most prestigious book award. Escape
has been published in French and Spanish; an English version is scheduled
for release in the near future.
In Japan, Cao Yong faced a new challenge: how to survive as an artist
in a free-market economy. To continue to paint his Tibet series, as well
as to feed himself and his young wife, Cao Yong worked as a gravedigger
and took small painting commissions. But soon his artistic skill and versatility
attracted much larger commissions to design and paint enormous murals.
Within a few years, Cao Yong's murals adorned stylish commercial buildings,
high-class department stores, and even ceremonial sites in Tokyo, Kyoto,
and many other cities. In 1991, Cao Yong founded his first company, C
& G Wall-Painting Productions, and was soon recognized as the nation's
most honored muralist. Meanwhile, Cao Yong continued to work passionately
on his Tibet paintings, and many of his finest works in the Tibet series
were created during this period. His work was exhibited in Tokyo's prominent
O Art Museum, Shibuya Gallery, and Gallery Bamboo, as well as in the Yunghan
Art Gallery in Taipei, Taiwan. Famous Japanese art critic, Yoshida Yoshie,
declared that Cao Yong's work astounded the art world not only because
of its outstanding artistic value, but also because of its "profound insight
and powerful impact on the world in which we live." Moreover, Cao Yong
was extolled by the Japanese press as "an artistic genius of our time."
In 1994, searching for tougher challenges and an international stage,
Cao Yong emigrated to the United States. Inspired by the free-spirited
American way of life, the prosperous and energetic society, and the spectacular
landscapes, Cao Yong drove from Maine to Texas, from New York to Los Angeles.
At last he felt that he could throw off the shackles which had so long
weighed down his spirit, and experience both literal and artistic freedom.
Cao Yong soon realized that the artistic language he had mastered over
the years could not effectively communicate his newest experiences and
emotions. Although his Tibet paintings once again won him rounds of applause
in this country's fine art circles, and the world-celebrated Christie's
successfully auctioned several of his masterpieces for a large sum, Cao
Yong refused to depend upon past successes, or to repeat them. He was
determined to create and govern a new artistic language, even it meant
starting from scratch. To that end, he whole-heartily delved into the
American landscape and society--into city streets, restaurants, parks,
bars, small towns--in order to observe, to understand, and to experience
American life. Cao Yong worked day and night with extraordinary energy.
During his first three years in the U.S., he painted over two hundred
oil paintings, and each was an attempt to express himself in a fresh way.
In 1997, Cao Yong moved from New York City to Los Angeles. The brilliant
sun on the powerful, rugged landscape of the American West revived potent
memories of Tibet. But Cao Yong's heart, as well as his work, had already
risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes of his oppressive past. With the determination
of a pioneer, Cao Yong set forth, heading toward the higher ground of
artistic maturity. Of the moment when he painted Santa Monica, the work
that marks the turning point of his career, Cao Yong says: "To this day,
I can still feel the tingle I felt upon pouring my exultation onto this
canvas. As I painted nearly 200 figures reveling in a spontaneous street
festival on a summer night, I was likewise celebrating in my own heart."
The sincere jubilance of Cao Yong's work has universal appeal. Collectors
and art dealers zealously welcomed, and continue to welcome, Cao Yong's
new art. In order to satisfy the rapidly growing demand and to bring his
art to a bigger audience, Cao Yong established his art publishing company,
Cao Yong Editions, Inc., in 1999. Since then, The company has released
four series of limited-edition prints: Venice, Golden Coast, Romantic
Gardens, and Hawaii. Just announced is the forthcoming Paris series. His
distribution network has covered the nation and it is now expanding into
the Japanese, Canadian, and European markets.
Although audiences around the world respond to Cao Yong's remarkable work
with standing ovations, the artist remains raptly focused on perfecting
his art. "After all, painting is my life, and being an artist is my fate,"
says Cao Yong simply. While in the past, he vented great pain and anger
upon the canvas solely for himself, now that he has found freedom and
the inner peace that accompanies it, he is eager to share this with others.
To Cao Yong there is no greater reward than being able to bring to people
the beauty, joy, and love that his heart witnesses through his art.
|
|
CAO
YONG