Nanette Medved-Po keeps her promise to her artist-mom Yueh Faye Lai

“Like my first show, my second ‘A Daughter’s Promise’ is about what I call silent emotion, unspoken emotion,” Faye begins to share the story of her art straight from her heart, her voice softly wafting through the air.

There’s a calmness about her, like a serene sea or a cloudless blue sky, that belies the storms and hardships she’s weathered, growing up in war-torn Taiwan in the 1920s, then migrating to the US. Back then, she didn’t paint because she had to work to survive.

But 25 years ago, she had a dream, a vivid dream. “One night, I dreamt of the Lord Jesus wearing a white robe amid the beautiful blue skies,” she relates. “Around Him were two angels holding a scroll. I was standing under His feet, holding a ladder. When I looked at the scroll, I said, ‘Oh, that’s my painting!’ The scroll was very huge. And then I woke up.”

Romancing nature

Yueh Faye Lai traces her art history to her father Lai You Sun, a self-taught artist who influenced her art. “I went back to Taiwan to study advanced calligraphy and also Chinese brush painting,” she recounts. “After that, I didn’t do any brushwork or Chinese painting until I was in my 60s.”

“Nature is my inspiration, my muse,” she declares, recalling how she picked up her paintbrushes again 15 years ago. “Whenever I see trees, flowers, sceneries, a different kind of feeling sweeps over me and I imagine how beautiful they are.”

“She’s doing one of her walks in the garden and stumbles on the leaves of the bamboo tree, which she sprays on rice paper,” Nanette points out.

She infuses her art with an inimitable sense of humor. Like some frogs out on a date—did they end up croaking happily ever after? Or a praying mantis couple who did not pray and stay together.

Hall of frame

In easy, breezy brushstrokes, images quietly leap out onto huge rice paper mounted on canvas. “It was a challenge framing all these gigantic artworks,” confesses Agnes Amarra, owner of Frame of Mind, who did a pretty good job for this exhibit.

“Eighty percent of my paintings are very huge,” Faye admits. “Most are made of rice paper from China that’s uncut in size, they give me a whole roll. My framer Agnes asked me, ‘Why are your paintings so large?’ I told her that I needed to extend my memory, my imagination.”

With such humongous pieces (like a 110 x 180 cm ink on silk or a 182 x 92 cm ink on rice paper), how long does it take Faye to finish an artwork? 

“It depends on the details of the painting,” she replies, adding, “and also how I’m feeling at the time. I will not paint if I’m frustrated at the moment. Some take a few minutes to finish while some take almost a year. Why? Because there’s so much emotion involved. Sometimes when I pick up my brush, I tell my daughter I can’t do it today because I’m too emotional, I’m too attached. Chinese brushwork is hard emotionally because you have to focus, everything you touch tells a feeling or story about the painting.”

Faye would often disappear into her art room to paint for days and come out with a masterpiece. 

Nanette points at a brush painting of a tree trunk that took her mom a year to do. She explains, “It was an incredibly painful piece of work for her because, if you look closely at the cross-section of this old tree, it tells you its life story, from a very young tree. And as it grows, you can almost see the cracks in the trunk, the disturbances it has gone through in life. Maybe something terrible happened, there was a fire, etc. All these incidents shaped the tree into what it is today. So, as my mom was painting every ring of the tree, it forced her to reflect on her childhood, the good and the bad, the joy and the pain in her life. It was a cathartic sort of experience for her, so I remember telling her, ‘Please do not paint it anymore because you’re being tortured.’ But she continued to work on it for a year. Finally finishing it in 2017, she showed it to me and I exclaimed, ‘Oh, my God, it’s so beautiful!’ She made it her own story.”

Faye says with a hint of motherly pride, “I’m really blessed that my daughter really appreciates my work.” 

Her youth potion: Meditation

Faye goes on to share: “When I feel good, I paint. One time, my daughter asked me, ‘Mama, how come your painting is not violent, there’s no anger?’ It’s very calm and beautiful. There’s no negativity or sadness. When I have my brush, I am happy.”

And the secret to that is: “Before I paint, I meditate. Meditation brings me calmness like I’m in a different world. I imagine, I fantasize I’m a child again.”

Faye must have discovered the proverbial fountain of youth. Her advice to women on how to look and feel young? “Try to motivate yourself, find something interesting that will make you happy. Believe that love is the most central part of a human being—if you love somebody, you love yourself, you love others.”

It was a joint decision of mother and daughter not to sell any of the paintings in the exhibit. The reason is that when Faye’s father, also an artist, passed away, his works (all 300 brush paintings) were his legacy to his daughter. “And now, my works are my legacy to my two handsome grandsons,” says this doting grandma.

Going back to her dream, Faye didn’t know what it meant back then, but now, she believes God is encouraging her to continue her work and inspire others. Because you’re never too old to paint—or to dream! 

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“A Daughter’s Promise” will run until Nov. 30 at Manila House, 8th floor, Bonifacio Global City. It’s Yueh Faye Lai’s second solo exhibit, following her 2015 show at the Yuchengco Museum.