I first sensed something like a “cosmos” before Cen Long’s paintings through a work titled Distance. At the time, I did not know it was a cosmos, nor did I have any theory with which to name it. I only knew that the world revealed within the painting was a state I deeply longed for yet could not articulate. That feeling did not arise from starry skies or grand imagery, but from an extremely quiet call—as if something greater than myself were waiting in that distant place.

Years later, as I continued to look at his works—curating, contemplating, and accompanying these paintings for nearly seventeen years—I gradually came to understand that the inexpressible longing I felt back then was, in fact, a sensation of being summoned by a cosmic scale. The light in Cen Long’s paintings is precisely the means by which this summons occurs. It is not physical light that illuminates form, but a state in which world and life are perceived simultaneously, allowing figures, sky, horizon, and air to share the same scale of existence.

Cen Long’s light has no identifiable source and follows no naturalistic logic. It creates no dramatic effect and serves no narrative function. Instead, it permeates the canvas with extreme restraint, almost without weight, placing all that exists within the same slow and steady rhythm. Within such light, human beings and the world are no longer separated, but are jointly situated within a larger cosmic order.

In Distant Mountains, light no longer acts upon any figure, but exists as the very field of the world itself. Mountains, sky, and horizon are enveloped in a homogeneous, quiet luminosity, so that viewing no longer concentrates on a single object, but enters a state of being-with the whole. Such an image is not a landscape so much as the breathing of a cosmos, allowing one to momentarily forget one’s own weight and become part of it.

In Starlight in the Firmament, light is compressed to the point of near disappearance. Figures and background sink together into the night, yet are still sustained by an extremely faint brightness. This is not illumination, but a force that prevents existence from being erased. Even at moments closest to nothingness, the world still gently supports every not-yet-vanished presence in the form of light.

Through these years of looking, I slowly realized that the light in Cen Long’s paintings is never fragmentary. It forms a very quiet yet distinct path: a path that moves from the cosmos toward the human, and from the human toward the distance beyond. It is here that I truly understood that Cen Long’s light is, in essence, a form of faith—not faith in a god, but “a faith that allows existence to continue forward.”

Some light turns the entire world into a field that can be felt.

Some light sustains existence even at the moment of near disappearance.

Some light descends from the sky, bringing life for the first time into a larger order.

Some light rises from the depths of the human heart, allowing one to retain one’s own brightness amid turbulence.

And finally, there is a kind of light that illuminates nothing, but simply draws one forward into the distance.

When I place these lights together, I finally see Cen Long’s cosmos:

not a static world, but a space generated layer by layer through light—

from the birth of the world, to the affirmation of existence, to inner awakening, and ultimately toward hope and forward movement.

In Light from Above, a vertical brightness descends from the top of the canvas. It lacks any religious theatricality, yet feels like a response from the depths of the cosmos, drawing the figure into an order larger than itself. Existence is seen here not because narrative demands it, but because it is placed within a field that possesses direction and meaning.

By the time we reach A Windy Day, light seems no longer to come from the sky, but to be upheld by the figures’ own bodies and wills. The world presses upon them with heaviness, and they bear it, resist it, and maintain their connection with the cosmos through their own luminosity. This is not self-illumination, but a rhythm that does not collapse under weight; the subject is no longer merely lit by the world, but becomes, through bearing that weight, a point of light resonating with it.

In Those Who Chase the Starlight, light is not even depicted concretely. The group in the painting moves toward the distance, not because a reachable destination has already come into view, but because they still sense the presence of light within the unknown. It is precisely because they believe there is light that they are able to move forward. This is not a guarantee of an endpoint, but a cosmic tension oriented toward the future. Here, “existence” is no longer merely illuminated, but drawn by a direction not yet visible—transformed from “being seen” into “going toward.”

In Cen Long’s paintings, light is never a technique, nor an ornament. It is the way the world comes into being; it is the medium through which humanity and sky, distance and interiority, are placed within the same rhythm. For this reason, his paintings always carry a rare sense of tranquility—not an escape from reality, but a feeling of being situated within a cosmic scale: a tranquility that, even amid turbulence, is willing to bear, to believe, and to keep moving forward.

Within such light, courage is not a shouted gesture, but the willingness to step toward the unknown; hope is not a guarantee of outcomes, but trust in a direction; and love is the choice, along this long road, to walk with others. Before his paintings, one is not alone. For light does not merely illuminate existence—it gently receives and guides every existence within a world larger than itself.