By Cheng Sheng Hua
There will be no dawn, our world belongs completely to the eternal night. Everything takes on the essence of the darkness, whilst never becoming lifeless or dreary. Slowly, the eternal night is lit up by the light of our desires. So bright it hurts the eyes, the light even reaches the darkest places. Time starts to disappear as it falls into the unclear zone between the mortal and the underworld. It frees itself from the control of the hands of the clock and returns to sacred time, a time without any of its properties. The lights are not for lighting, rather, a celebration of life. In the dizzying splendor, a small path leads between the underworld to sub-consciousness. The paintings of Lin Bao Ling outline fantastical landscapes of the night like such. He sets a beautiful trap that no audience can help but to fall into. It evokes the fatal attraction of our desires. In the end, this trap will lead to emptiness, the gaps in history and the bleak abyss of life.
Firstly, there would be no harm in starting with a clear thread to the story...
The Light of Light: Caravaggio and Lin Bao Ling
