“Without Beginning or End: The Trans-Temporal Art of Yeachin Tsai”, An Essay by Robert R. Shane

“Without Beginning or End”

The Trans-Temporal Art of Yeachin Tsai

Robert R. Shane

The Contentment of Mr. Orange, 2015, acrylic on paper

“The circle… is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions… it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.”
—Vassily Kandinsky

A blazing cadmium red-orange circle pulsates with mesmerizing force in Yeachin Tsai’s painting The Contentment of Mr. Orange (2015) from the artist’s series “Dot in the Space.” Compared to the small gray spot just off-center within its body, the orange circle looks unfathomably large, recalling graphic representations comparing size of the Sun to the Earth. The orange form’s fuzzy borders give the sense that this monumental circle’s energy is ready to burst outward, a force countered only by the inward gravitational pull of its mass. Floating in a dull yellow and gray void, the circle seems to exist in a no-place and a timeless no-time, but its phenomenal impact on the viewer situates it in the here and now. As the retinas tire of the color’s intensity, the viewer begins to see its afterimage; the circle’s hitherto invisible opposite—always already contained within itself—is revealed with the unfolding of time…

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