Fishing for Art

2 min read

Money, it seems, is not the end all and be all. Sure, heaps of the stuff will buy you a flash car and the latest smart-phone but, when all is said and done, when the ravages of time-coupled with the unrelenting ferocity of the elements have their wicked way with your puny possessions, they’ll be reduced to nothing more than piles of rust. Money, then, is transient, fallible-mortal. a captain of hiswater coursg ough his veins By 17 he was a full-time of his own seafaring vessel. Although he said goodbye to his estyle never leaves you”, he told us when we met in his humble its rich and noble culture.

The artist’s innocently captivating style carries forward age-old folk aesthetics that are more important to him than any material possession or financial gain. “It is important for me to be close to the fishermen’s lifestyle I used to make a living out of”says Jiang as he shows us some of his most recent work. Surreal, rich in colour and steeped in time-honoured tradition,but to him the focus is on the advancement of his people’s unique marine culture and history. painting that highlights their vivid imagination and longing for beauty and home-spun sincerity.

Thanks to these folksy fisherman there is a new generation of folk artists emerging who are determined to carry on sharing their unique culture with the wider world, via wonderful works of art such as those crafted by Jiang. And, in the final analysis, it’s cultural artefacts such as these-works that form part of an ever evolving cultural dialogue that has been mutating for generations that will outlive us all.