Mont Saint-Michel

Of all the paintings we made for the expo,
Mont-Saint-Michel is the most reworked,
and the one closest to our hearts.

Mont-Saint-Michel is where our journey began.
I was born there,
and there it will gently end.

My father’s and uncles’ ashes rest at Mont-Saint-Michel,
and one day mine will too.

After four attempts, I still couldn’t find peace with the painting.
Jiang simply said, “It’s okay, I’ll take care of it,”
and quietly repainted the entire piece from scratch.

For us, this painting is a meditation
on peace, on eternity,
and on how brief a single life is
against the generations before and after us.

From the edge of the canvas
you can count five layers of green —
each one a remnant of a version that came before.

Read more about it here →