Born in Hong Kong in the early 1950's, Yeung traveled to China in 1996. He was embracing the opportunity to view the Yangtze River middle tributary before the geography of the area was altered forever by the flooding of this terrain. A large part of Chinese history relates to the Yangtze also knows as the Long River. For Yeung, it was a significant example of China's transformation. Although he did not intend to create a body of work that signified change, it transpired naturally.
The square format and generous panoramic carbon pigmented prints aspire to confront the viewer with Yeung's discoveries and create a portal into a fading landscape, a city of contrasts, a layered garden wall crumbling, a bicycle parking area obsolete while still in use and other moments of transformation. The images hold the viewer in the present and allow an initial reaction of still, tranquil beauty to dream, without a melancholy longing for faded beauty. The photographic power is in the documentation that was, and is, the past, along with the future. There is no difference. There is no sentimental desire. One can see through Yeung's eyes that the simplest of views and objects are the beauty of the moment as nothing is permanent in our world.
While the images' scale provides an open vista, the lack of color narrows the vision to the elements of importance: form and light. Through his composition and attention to detail Yeung is able to capture the effects of age and erosion creating a sense of how the mountains and manmade buildings are formed.
In Three Gorges, the rivers' structure is examined. The cloud bank hovering over the gorge draws the viewer's attention to the simplicity of the scene. Within the Three Gorges, the palette is void of color as Yeung, intuitively, and intellectually, follows the Buddhist idea that dazzling the eye is a sure way to dazzle the soul. The Taoist classic Tao Te Ching states, 'the five colors dazzle the eye, the five tastes confuse the tongue'. Yeung's work is affected by this sole doctrine; subtle and spare with attention to the play of light, tones, and form.
As the world transitions into the twenty-first century the environment is being bullied by human desires. The beauty found in man made constructions becomes questionable as to its role in nature and its impact on one's spirit and environment.
Four of the photographs are presented as scrolls to display Yeung's subtle commentary on the validity of the manmade environs as part of nature. By portraying manmade scenes in the traditional Chinese ink painting format of a scroll, he illuminates the simplest principle. Chinese painting embodies nature and Yeung, with no judgment, suggests the buildings are just as natural to our lives as a mountainside.
These photographs interpret China during significant years and as Yeung has aptly remarked: "Travel is visiting the past and the future through the same window." Allow Yeung's lens to offer that view.
