Year: 2012 Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 145x145cm (100F)
How do you define perfection?
In Chinese culture, people use ten, said number 10 to describe 100% or perfect.
Also, in the decimal numeral system, when the number reaches 10, it then becomes or levels up to another "1".
In artist 李善單 Lee Sun Don's recent work, "Wonderful Attainment / Toward Ten Achievements", we have 9 mountains in the frame, and when we start to count, 1, 2, 3......, 8, and 9, and the last number 10 can just come to you since there is no other path but only you, and then you become the "one" such as it is. 十大一如。
The symbol of 9-mountains in the Lee's world also refers to Mount Jiuhua in AnHui Province where is famous for its rich landscape and ancient temples dedicated to Ksitigarbha (known in Chinese as Dìzàng, Chinese: 地藏, in Japanese as Jizō, source from Wikipedia)
The elements, mountains (read as Shan), boats in the river (read as jiang), and temples or shrimps (read as Miao4) and you, the viewer, all combine together to achieve the perfection!
More numbers in Mandarin language? Try first, one, 一....................
Wonderful Attainment / Forshang—The One and Only
(by Artist Lee Sun Don李善單)
