Bridge

Picture Story

III. Bridge

My father's surname was Mu (木) and his given name was Qiao (乔). Stacked, the two characters form 桥 — “bridge.”

The Han Nai-He Bridge is judgment and forgetting; the Naxi soul-path is memory and return. He himself was the bridge built between life and death.

In the painting, boat and bridge become one — the vessel floating in the ink whirlpool is itself the form of a bridge. The dense black current is the water of Lethe, and also the river of lost souls in the Naxi ghost realm; the pale gold hull at the centre is the ferry, and the passage; the vermilion and warm tones on the right are the last warmth of this shore.

There are thousands of ways to cross a bridge: step on stone slabs, ride a boat, take Noah's Ark. I choose ink as the boat and brushstroke as the bridge.

Now the bridge is burned, the piers ground to powder, but the bridge has done its work — my father has crossed from this side to the other.