Pink Perfection on the Silk Road to Taishun

As cybernauts, humans emit a digital signature— a visible representation of behavioral conditioning. The dopamine created in our brain is an incentive to seek information, validation and more from navigating deeper and deeper into cyberspace. Rather than digging a hole to China, we are slipping between dimensions to places previously unimaginable. The virtual snail trail from scrolling leaves crawl marks— gestures that outline our past, present and future proportions.

While on the Explore Page of instagram one day, an image drew my attention. A rotund man in a preposterous green, pink and flesh colored outfit with a petaled hat, was gyrating in a field, within a group of women. His ensemble was an approximate copy of his female companions’ far more dainty costumes. The host for this video is @amazingtaishun, whose social media mission may be lost in translation. There’s a mix of cooking hacks, cute baby and animal videos, acrobatic and artistic feats, as well as baffling human behavior. Is this all to entice viewers to book their next vacation in Taishun? The Explore Page was curated according to my choices. It is a window into my subconscious, and I’m eager to understand what it reveals. I find the stream of varied content strangely addictive. Thirty minutes disappears alarmingly fast every time I’ve looked through this feed. 

I’ve not physically traveled to Asia. Other than reading Chinese American fiction writers, all I know of China comes from art history, and one semester of Chinese language classes hosted by the Department of Agriculture. A friend, who was couch surfing until he found a place, insisted that I attend with him. It was magnificent learning, but my first full time job left me little time to properly study characters, vocabulary and practice speaking. Twenty-eight years later the only word that remains is 中国 or Zhōngguó, which literally translates to Middle State. For someone ignorant of China, the idea of being in a state of neither here nor there, but somewhere in the middle seems appropriate. For a native, it more likely means something closer to the Middle Kingdom, or THE Center of the World. 

The floral dance troupe echoes one of many themes in Amazing Taishun’s content stream. “Isn’t gender bending fun!” Why does my digital signature elicit such hilarity? I decided to paint the scene to find out. Models are hard to come by in rural Virginia, and where would I ever find such interesting subjects in person? It took several days to “paint”. At the end of each session I wondered “What am I trying to achieve?” An excessive screen time warning flickered in my mind. It didn’t quite feel like a waste of effort, but as Paul Klee once said, “Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes visible.” What would be revealed about me or my cyber space expedition?  

Years ago my former husband and I were invited to a costume party. The hosts were friends of friends. In preparation we made matching costumes: two pink leotards, foil covered tiaras and pink satin slippers to match. My outfit was just right, but his needed more drastic improvements. We called ourselves Sweet-n-Low and Pink Perfection. We made name tags and choreographed a dance. Unfortunately our performance did not get as many laughs as expected. We thought it was a crowning moment of our marriage. There’s a synergy between these two performances in my imagination. The sum of both creates an elaborate space that only I can access. It’s somewhere between—neither here, nor there. 

Trompe l’Oeil means to fool the eye. I believe the heart and mind are more deceived by images. There is a foolish permanence in the ephemera of captured light. I seek something more from painting. A friend tells me often, “Stop working from photographs”. I did not want to abandon Pink Perfection on the Silk Road to Taishun, in the prefecture of Wenzhou, in the southern part of Zhejiang province, China. When would I ever get there again? The revelation was my dependence upon the dance of light across a screen to transport myself to unimaginable places. My device is both a portal and a trap. I’m never here nor there, but somewhere in between. Is this a painting of my digital signature? Ceci n’est pas une pipe, but it sure feels like I can pick it up.