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We All Return To The Place That It Started Exhibition Catalog: Chapter 7 - Candice Lu

We All Return To The Place That It Started Exhibition Catalog
Chapter 7 - Candice Lu
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table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Chapter 1 - Introduction
  3. Chapter 2 - Alaya Shah
  4. Chapter 3 - Andrei Barrett
  5. Chapter 4 - Becca Panos
  6. Chapter 5 - Benji Hsu
  7. Chapter 6 - Campbell Romano
  8. Chapter 7 - Candice Lu
  9. Chapter 8 - Cecilia Crowe
  10. Chapter 9 - Cynthia Li
  11. Chapter 10 - Darinka Arones
  12. Chapter 11 - Ian Kai Porterfield
  13. Chapter 12 - Isabella Marques
  14. Chapter 13 - Jane Liu
  15. Chapter 14 - Kalia (Kai) Harunzade
  16. Chapter 15 - Nick Horcher بركات
  17. Chapter 16 - Owen Roberts
  18. Chapter 17 - Rory Jackson
  19. Chapter 18 - Sarah Gelleny
  20. Chapter 19 - Yutong Wei
  21. Chapter 20 - Yuxi Ma
  22. Chapter 21 - Exhibition Credits

<span data-text-digest="9fc5471b9c34e8f885a0763b3bab0b0e823e9bb5" data-node-uuid="9c39effb55a0a6f285b1cc32c94eede53b8a0b45">Candice Lu</span>

Candice Lu

Details of black and white illustrations of a tiger with human heads and a woman on a throne
Details from Fusang and Kaiming and The Queen Mother of Xihua, courtesy of artist.

Fusang and Kaiming (2021)
Ink on Paper 11" x 14"

There was a mountain valley north of Heichi Guo called Yang Gu. It was there ten suns went to bathe, naturally turning the water there boiling hot. A mulberry tree, the Fusang Shu, stood in the water at the edge of the valley. Another giant tree was where nine suns rested on the lower branches and one on an upper branch. They changed places on a rotating basis every day.

There was a trench on the southern slope of Kunlun Shan three hundred ren deep. The guardian of the mountain was a ferocious looking beast called Kaiming Shou. With the look of a tiger, a very large one, it had nine heads, each with a human face, all showing in different directions, some bearded, some not, all fanged. The central head looked east from where it stood on the mountain.

The Queen Mother of Xihua (2022)
Ink on Paper 11" x 14"

In Chinese mythology, the Queen Mother of Xihua is a spectacularly arresting, some would say mesmerizing, leader of the Taoist pantheon. Not an actual beautiful woman of legend, this "Queen Mother," while possessing the upper form of a woman, had a leopard's tail, a tiger's fangs behind seductive lips, and the howl of a wild animal. Her tangled hair was held in place by jade ornaments. Charged with arranging calamities, pestilences, and punishments among earthlings, she functioned like an ominous constellation. Although not manifestly unattractive, the unconventional, almost feral beauty of this daunting creature exuded an inauspicious aura, owing to the dreadful events under her charge.

Protected by the fantastical creature Phoenix, the Queen Mother of Xihua is a guardian and nurturer of the immortals. She dwells on the Kunlun Mountain, a mysterious numinous mountain located in the far west, a place outside of time and space, where joy prevailed and music, poetry and divine banquets were held. Here in her palace of Kunlun Mountain, immortals gather to partake of a sacred feast and renew their immortality every 3000 years.

Photograph of person with long dark brown hair, light beige skin, wearing a gray shirt with black lettering and illustration
Photograph of Candice Lu, courtsey of artist.

Candice Lu (she/her)

Candice Lu is a New York based artist originally from Ningbo, China. Her practice captures mysterious moments that compel viewers to wonder what has happened and what is to come. In each artwork, a unique narrative is created from the interaction between subjects and their environments, transferring something so extraneous into something tangible yet mysterious.

Artist Statement

Channeling mystery and symbolism, I create worlds where conflicting elements are at odds with one another. I wish to stimulate the imagination through exploring between the visible that is obscure and the visible that is perceptible, rather than proposing polemics with the viewers. I have no boundaries and no rules; whatever I experience becomes my inspiration. I feel therefore I live, I live therefore I create!

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Chapter 8 - Cecilia Crowe
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