"I've said this many times—it's the purest and most authentic thing stored in my mind. Not only can I recall the appearance of every house in the village as if it were yesterday, but I can also find cracks in a wall from my childhood that never actually existed."
—— Gabriel García Márquez “Return to the seed”
Sun Yaoyao, a graduate from the Huangmei Opera School in Anhui, has led an ordinary life for over forty years, juggling family responsibilities and teaching. One leisurely afternoon in Toronto, while accompanying her child, she picked up a paintbrush and began expressing her life's journey on canvas. Despite no formal art school training, her paintings exude a natural charm, as if her canvas is an untouched artistic haven.
When observing Sun Yaoyao's artwork, one might contemplate the intrinsic value of painting. In an age dominated by the transformative influence of AI, questions arise regarding the justification for the existence of painting. What if painting were to lose its meaning altogether? However, let us entertain the notion that painting still holds a future. As long as we are alive, our physical bodies endure, prompting us to ponder whether we should remain true to our bodily experiences. Confronting these inquiries inevitably brings to mind Gabriel Garcia Marquez's late-life essay Return to the seed. In this reflective piece, Marquez delves into the interconnectedness of writing with its source, emphasizing the significance of confronting reality with authenticity and perception. As Marquez once again embarks on the journey back of Return to the seed, traversing the dusty paths of Aracataca, retracing to the origins and the core from this "poetic source", he bears the most astonishing literary fruit.
Similar to Marquez's return to the seed, Sun Yaoyao, in her painting journey, rediscovers the essence of life and infuses of her body onto the tip of the brush, returning to the physical, returning to the primal, returning to intuition and perception. Back to her growth and dedication, back to her spirituality and sensitivity, back to the seeds buried in her feeling.