Quiet lonely dead wood—Hong Song En Solo Exhibition｜Taichung City Seaport Art Center

The Beginning of "Midnight Dream Awakening" in 2022.

I won my first "Hundred-Number Oil Painting Award" during my most naive years. It felt like a ray of hope shining into my life at a time when I was going through a personal low. I had failed both the university entrance exams and the professional skills tests. I was confident I would succeed, but I always fell just short. I often wondered why reality had to be so cruel to me, and whether this path was still worth pursuing.

Then, an opportunity came. A teacher handed me a brochure for the Hundred-Number Oil Painting competition. At the time, I had never worked with oil paint, but I felt a strong inner desire to give it a try. I bought the canvas and, relying on my research into the medium and my years of painting experience, I completed my first ever oil painting, which also turned out to be my first award-winning piece. I was lucky enough to enter the world of oil painting. I am deeply grateful to the judges for their recognition, which provided me with great motivation to keep moving forward during a period of frustration and low spirits.

The Creation Story of "Withered and Silent Trees"

The inspiration came from a quote by Nietzsche: "In fact, humans are like trees. The more they yearn for the sunlight above, the deeper their roots must reach into the dark ground." We often have to experience the most painful failures to understand how difficult and hard it is. The path of art is an extremely lonely and unknown journey, but we must still face and break through it to grow and transform. The deeper and broader our roots are, the richer the nutrients we can absorb, allowing us to grow into towering trees and become the person we most want to be. Each painting here portrays different stages of life after "Midnight Dream Awakening."

Exhibition Goals

I hope that everyone who attends will feel the energy that the works bring. If you are currently going through a low point in life or facing various challenges, please don’t give up on the dreams that still reside within you. Keep pushing forward and overcome that seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Do not give up!