An exhibition of paintings and sculpture at the Ottawa Congress Centre will tell the riveting story of the persecution of Falun Gong in China. The exhibition, titled Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance International Art Exhibition, runs from October 8–11.
The pieces’ refined techniques and subject matter reflect the artists’ commitment to Falun Gong’s teachings of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
While the art derives from the artists’ spirituality, expressing the inner meanings required them to develop a new artistic language in the tradition of classical techniques. Their use of brush strokes, colour, light, darkness, shadows, and imagery expresses a universal belief: good always triumphs over evil. In the epic struggle between evil and goodness, ordinary human experience has the potential to transform—through suffering and endurance—into the extraordinary.
The goal of Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance art may also be explained through a representative story. An example is the Canadian rescue from a labour camp, in northeastern China, of world-renowned artist and Falun Gong practitioner Professor Kunlun Zhang in 2001. Extensive media coverage of that story included the haunting plea of his daughter Lingdi, living in Ottawa. Her letter was published in the Ottawa Citizen in November 2000.
“I feared so much my father, Kunlun Zhang, would be gone from my life, just like tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have been taken away from their families… I felt even worse thinking that he would disappear without anyone even knowing about it.”
Zhang, artistic director of the exhibit, tells how the motivation for his work is guided by Falun Gong’s teachings. “I want to pay back what the Canadian government and people have done to liberate me from the prison camps of China,” he says. The high-profile campaign that led to Zhang’s release gathered momentum prior to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s visit to China in February 2001. Zhang’s wife, Shumei, who remained under house arrest in Jinan Province, also won her freedom and joined her husband and two daughters in Canada later in the year.
The artworks in this collection engage the viewer in a powerful dialogue. The artistic experience for the viewer may be new and intense, but its message is ancient, simple, and unexpected—that you were born to inspire renewal, thus bettering the world with your goodness.
The pieces demonstrate that artistic excellence is functional; they aim to raise viewers’ consciousness by depicting the little-understood nature of the practice and portraying the harsh reality that practitioners face in present-day China.
The collection includes the work of well-known Ottawa artist Kathy Gillis. Her pieces have won numerous awards at the regional, provincial, and national levels, and are included in the collections of the City of Ottawa, Carleton University, and University of Ottawa. Gillis, who has taught at the Ottawa School of Art for the last 25 years, says painting for the exhibit was a “journey back to square one,” away from the egoism of Western art. “It would be a long time before institutions come to understand this art,” she adds.
Zhang and Gillis are continuously learning to portray the subjects of their artwork from the “inside,” to capture the essence or inner meaning of an experience. Their artistic process gently showcases “goodness,” even when the truth of senseless brutality in China must be told. For instance, in Gillis’ “Liu Chengjun and All,” she artistically transforms the true story of the death of a Falun Gong practitioner, Liu Chengjun, into one of “transcendence” in suffering. “I was struck by his dignity and his ability to endure… he had a great deal of presence, even in an unconscious, contorted state,” she says, after seeing a photo of him in an article.
The ZSR exhibition has traveled to prestigious galleries in several countries in Asia, Europe, and North America, including The National Arts Club in New York City. The Ottawa exhibit will feature a collection of approximately forty works of international artists. The exhibit runs from Saturday through Tuesday; admission is free.
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