The works of Tsai Erh-ping encourage viewers to treasure nature and help them rediscover their inner child.

With their gorgeous colors, exaggerated proportions and exquisite craftsmanship, the breathtaking works of Tsai Erh-ping often leave people dazzled as soon as they set eyes on them. The most representative products of his brand “Jewelry10” are pieces ten to 20 centi­meters long in the form of lobsters, chameleons, lizards, ­spiders…. Through the artist’s skill these creatures, overlooked by most people, manifest their innate dignity and magnificence. At first glance the pieces look more like works of art, but when pinned to a person’s clothes they become jewelry that can be matched with clothing and worn. Or perhaps they can be better described as miniature sculptures that combine the beautiful lines of fine metalwork with the glossy texture of ceramics. In close-up, the elaborate designs have a highly fashionable look. The uniquely styled creative themes, choice of materials, and craft techniques play off each other, radiating a high degree of artistic tension.

Always returning to nature

Tsai Erh-ping’s earliest artistic training was at the National Taiwan Academy of Arts (today the National Taiwan University of Arts), where he got a foundation in ceramics. Later he studied sculpture and painting in New York, at the Parsons School of Design and the New York Studio School. With his solid classroom training, his focus and dedication, and his character traits of under­stand­ing how to extrapolate and not being limited by frameworks, for Tsai Erh-ping creation is just routine behavior, and is effortless. However, he emphasizes that his creations have never been purely artistic impulses that express a visual aesthetic, but that they imply profound values. He says: “If a space has one less work of art it doesn’t matter, but if a work lacks artistic content and concern for life, as well as the incorporation of reality, then it is frail and flimsy.” Put simply, his works are nothing but vehicles that allow him to express his concern and love for the land and his native place. He also says: “Wearing one of my works will not raise your status, but in fact causes people to forget about status. A lot of precious jewels require exploiting the earth, but I don’t use any especially valuable materials and still can make people think about where in nature they and these small creatures belong.”

This acute awareness of nature and his love for all animals and plants originated in his unique upbringing. We can get a sense of this when we come to the “Affectionate Garden,” owned in common by Tsai Erh-ping and his siblings and located in Bei­gang, Yun­lin County. The land was originally purchased by his father and mother, and cultivated in their spare time. Although it is called a garden, you will not see sumptuous floral displays. This is because it is based on the notions of biodiversity and “recreating the jungle,” and it looks more like a botanical garden. It was this ecologically rich, natural garden scenery that nourished the lives of the four brothers and sisters in their childhood years. Even today, though both parents have passed away, the whole family shares the same desire to continue to maintain and manage this space.

Tsai Erh-ping recounts that his father, who was very eru­dite, often said in English, “Live in nature, live on nature, live for nature.” When Tsai was small his father took him up to the roof of their house, and pointing at the boundless sky, said, “This is the universe.” Then he took him down to ground level, scooped up soil from the ground, and showed it to his son under a microscope, saying, “This too is the universe.” This mindset based on returning to the natural state of things, living harmoniously with nature, and taking nature as one’s home, has deeply influenced Tsai Erh-ping’s entire life, prompting him to establish another beautiful garden, filled with exotic plants and trees, half a world away on the North Shore of Long Island, New York.

For Tsai Erh-ping, fame and fortune mean nothing. The values he really cares about are these: not creating a hierarchy of living things but caring equally for all; thinking about and reflecting on the environment; and man’s humility before the unbounded vastness of the universe. Just as his father left these things to him, he is also passing them along to his children, and, through concrete works of art, spreading them to others.

Deep sentiments leave traces

With the Lunar New Year approaching, Tsai was invited by the ­Chiayi County Government to take part in the 2018 Taiwan Lantern Festival. He returned to Taiwan from New York and threw himself into creating a large-scale work that requires mobilizing more than 100 people. He is distressed that many large-scale exhibitions generate a lot of trash after the event is over and waste resources. Therefore he aimed to make his lantern display into a collectible large-scale sculpture with artistic value, and he personally went to scrapyards to seek out materials for it, hoping in this way to express the values of “recycle, reuse, renew, repair, refunction.”

We go with Tsai to a metal window-grille workshop in Bei­gang. He rolls up his sleeves, puts on cotton work gloves, and excitedly discusses details of the work with the metalworkers, who are his fellow Bei­gang towns­people. Tsai says he certainly is able to produce meticulously crafted works himself, but nowadays he prefers to make opportunities to get more people involved and working together, to create things with greater meaning and value. This is also an inspiration that he got from nature. “In the past, everything was about success for myself, but at a certain point, you want to take the knowledge and skills that you have accumulated over a lifetime and spread them around—just as a tree, after absorbing light and the essence of the earth, at some point will flower or produce fruit and give shade and shelter to living things. Only this is a complete life history.”

This large sculpted lantern, which goes by the name  Inexhaustible Vitality, not only uses a lot of scrap material, we can distinguish within it hints of many traditional utensils used in cooking, including ladles, pot lids, and oil strainers. After deconstruction, they are transformed into a new structure. Tsai Erh-ping says with delight: “This is a large pot cover for making rou­geng [pork stew]. Rou­geng is my favorite!” (This pot cover later becomes the roof dome of a castle.) These elements, which belong completely to his native land, the common people, and local life, are all present in this magnificent work.

Tsai Erh-ping states that the reason the family garden is called “Affectionate Garden” is to commemorate his parents, Dr. S.H. Tsai and Mrs. H.Y. Liao Tsai. The ­father studied in the Department of Medicine at Tai­hoku Imperial University (today the School of Medicine at National Taiwan University), but he chose to return to his poor and remote native place to practice. He devised a method of using needle aspiration to treat liver abscesses, saving the lives of about 3,600 people and making a great contribution to his hometown. The late Dr. Tsai’s given name, Shenhe, means “deep river,” and the garden’s Chinese name, Shen Qing Yuan, literally means “Deep Sentiment Garden,” which expresses the idea that “A river that flows with deep sentiment is sure to leave feelings.” Tsai Erh-ping is like his father.

Tsai’s wife, Cynthia ­Chuang, says, “Because many industries no longer operate in Taiwan, today although most public art is still designed in Taiwan, the work is mainly done in mainland China.” Tsai hopes to make the creation of the Lantern Festival work into a mass movement, with everyone from his hometown participating, using local materials and the help of local workshops, to reinvigorate local workers and resources and create new opportunities for this rural community. Like a gardener working with deep sentiment, Tsai is spreading seeds of hope, writing a new chapter for his beloved native place.