Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

This work is the artist's only known free-standing sculpture. Lao Lianben’s only attempt at real sculpture conjures the Japanese concept of ‘wabi sabi’ or revering the imperfect. While sculpture usually has the form of freestanding objects, Lao's work consists of Zen-scapes in three dimensional forms. Indeed, a number of his pieces can be said to be “freestanding mindcapes” a highly original concept. In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is an aesthetic view centered on the acceptance of transcience and imperfection the aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and “incomplete". It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (sanb?in), specifically impremanence (muj?), suffering (ku) and emptiness or absence of self nature (k?). Economy of means, purity of materials, stark contrasts and of crudeness and finesse build up the powerful poetry of Laos’ visual meditations. Although the basis of his art is materiality and its constructoi n, Lao never allows the least self consciousness or fetishism for materials get in the way of spiritual essence, his visionary concern. Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes. Lao’s art, whether as sculpture or collage, takes us along journeys into nature through less travelled ways. In eschewing the flashy and the obvious, Lao Lianben creates a serious and reflective art in three dimensions that does not pale with time but continually reveal precious insights and discoveries.