By Jia Fang Zhou 

One's childhood experiences can have the most lasting and profound influence and significance on their lives. Many major writers have tirelessly written of their childhood experiences. Early examples of this include the Lu Xun's writings "Hundred Grass Garden", "Three Tastes Reading Room" and "Moist Earth."

Lin Yutang wrote of this in his works "Hometown Mountain"; and Isadora Duncan wrote about childhood survival in "the Great Sea”; and Einstein wrote of how influence his childhood curiosity had on his study of science.

In childhood we form our earliest perception of the world. Lying down in his yurt and gazing at an unpredictable sky through its circular open roof, Bataar must have had so many beautiful fantasies. And yet there was no way he could have imagined that so many years later the unique shape and structure of this sky window would become the source of inspiration for his art. For Bataar, the skylight is not merely an external object, but an intrinsic part of his experience; it is a mental window forever tied to his personal psyche. This is because it was through the skylight that his earliest experiences of surprise and imagination were all laid out before him and obtained by him.

The yurt, this portable architecture created by the nomadic people of northern Asia, bears an exquisite design. It can be folded and packed with ease, transported, and rebuilt for life on new land. The yurt has become indispensable to a nomadic tradition of "following the grass.”

Yet because it does not feature a window on its walled surface, the yurt’s only connection to the outside it its round sky window. It serves not only as a source of natural lighting, but because of its central location it is also the most stable structural component of the yurt. The sky window is the principle symbol of connection between nomadic peoples and the world outside and the artistic mark that serves as an ever-beckoning source for the artist's fondest childhood memories.

From the sky window, Batta has created a series of landscape art works that include "Burning Toono-Skylight", "Submerged Skylight", "Sand StormSkylight" These works use modern art techniques to express a sense of nostalgia for the honorable survival methods of an ancient nationality. In Baatar's hometown, permanent dwellings are already replacing the nomadic lifestyle. With this trend on the rise, the yurt is destined to become relegated to museum exhibits.

With his childhood memories fading from reality, there is just cause for pain and loss to an artist who profoundly and fervently loves his hometown and it's people. "Submerged Skylight" clearly addresses the sadness of an ancient civilization being inevitably replaced by a modern civilization.

But Baatar, a modern man and contemporary artist, soberly recognizes that it is not possible to turn back the unceasingly forward progress of mankind. And with "Burning Toono Skylight" he presents a kind of ritualistic memorial service for an ancient civilization. The flame ignited in the darkness is a warm and rousing one. The design formed by that flame is a magnificent sight that causes the hearts of men to surge. Yet, as we bear witness to its gradually dying brilliance, it arouses a definite melancholy.

In "Skylight Toono" a process that took place over several millennia for an ancient civilization is compressed into the brief moment between the igniting and extinguishing of a flame. As the roaring flame seemingly transforms into the horse hoof prints of Genghis Khan's western march, into Beethoven's "Hero" and Tchaikovsky's " Grief," this is no doubt Baatar's artistic way of paying respect to the memory of long-passed heroic ancestors.

Standing before the art work that resulted from so many painstaking years of effort, one can't help but witness the history and be moved to tears as a result. Baatar’s "Skylight - Toono" indeed has the deep emotion and historical complexities of too many nationalities. It possesses a visual strength that is impossible to represent on canvas.

Baatar said that next year (July 2006) he will stage an event in Mongolia where he will use 800 horses to complete "Skylight - 800 HORSES TOONO.”
I imagine that event will be a great reappearance of Mongolian civilization and I am very excited to see the result.

August 5, 2005 Beijing

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