The Woman stands tall. Imposing. Four metres up. Stunning. Nothing to say. Yet you cannot help but feel her pain.
She is Exposed. Vulnerable. Misplaced. Here, all alone, yet not alone, in Hong Kong’s Exchange Square; the domain of money-obsession, trading and collection. She will not find her peace here.
She is under close scrutiny, like the financial markets around her, drawing silent admiration and awe from busy passerbys. They don’t stop. They’d rather ignore her than face the passion that seeps from her pores, less it detract too much from just getting on with the day.
Like them, She is in her own world.
But, unlike them, she cannot go unnoticed.
Like oil, she melts seamlessly at every angle, into every angle. Her dress is slick, rippled against her body, defining her skin. She is svelte, yet curvy, streamlined, luscious. Her movement, a dancer’s. But she’s not really moving.
Golden Goddess, are you a testament to the ostentation of this city? It’s as if the artist took a bucket of liquid gold and drenched you from top to toe, hoping that the paint would never dry and that your body would never harden.
A symbol of hope, perhaps, that the wealth of this city, will never run out.
A standing salutation to success in all its glory. Her stance, simple. Feet together. Almost perfect. But
In the front, she is scarred. Nine random drawers of different sizes, some open, some closed, run down her body. Unapologetic. She has no face. She has no breasts. Perhaps she has no Heart. No Soul. Someone has tried to open her up. But like her drawers, she’s appears to be empty.
But something is happening. There is drama at her feet as she stands in Fire. Her left arm, raised, straight to the sky. Asking for Help. SOS, of Desperation. Intense. The other arm is bent in agony, the hand resting, in vain, on her bald, featureless head. She is futile, defenseless. She is Burning Alive. She searches the heavens and screams with pain; but all we hear is silence.
The flame licks up the back of her contoured, liquid dress. Gulping her legs. Only her bare feet are free, peeping out desperately. They might consider running, if only she could.
She’s trapped. That is her fate. Her hips thrust forward and her back is over-arched. Her body contorts.
Wretched, Submissive. Surrendering to Heat.
She is strong, but weak. She is too young to be old. Yet, she is melting, like only the Old can do.
To stop her from falling and collapsing to death, the artist has given her architecturally-precise, rickety golden crutches, to support her flailing back.
But there is no support for her emotional turmoil.
Despite this, she glints like a newly polished penny in the Sun. She is breathtaking. Fabulous. Her physical oddities and emotionally-wretched gestures aside, she is still a Stunner. Her statuesque being stands on top of a perfectly square base, her ‘Earth.’ It is a small Earth. But one that supports a larger-than-life persona, that is caught up in its woes, and its own self-centeredness.
Perhaps she is a representation of our larger-than-life egos and the futility of our existence. Or she may symbolize the indestructible Being who is by no means, Infallible. The many empty drawers of her body may refer to the deep ‘layers’ of Psychoanalysis when we try to understand Us, but, in essence, these layers are only trivial, behind our ultimately empty thoughts, souls, emotions and pain.
Whatever her reason, she stands Proud as a Stirrer of Emotions. As we stop, stare and maybe draw comparisons between our world and hers, her very existence serves to tells us this:
In our search for Happiness, perhaps we should surrender to the knowledge that Life – and what makes it truly rich -
is Suffering.