The concept of this painting involves around the identity and otherness of people. Contemplating Lao Tzu's idea of "Dao begets One (nothingness; or reason of being), One begets Two (yin and yang), Two begets Three (Heaven, Earth and Man; or yin, yang and breath qi), Three begets all things. It stimulated me to related to human world .I suggest that the "one" can be comprehended as personal identity, which is innate ; ' the two' and ' the three' can be interpreted as the otherness of people, apart from genetic perspective, which is an epigenetic part .When I generated this idea, I decided to visualise it in artistic way.
Showing of this idea is either through two separately paintings or a light installation ( I has been mentioned in Installation part) . The figure in this painting was selected from internet without much consideration.I designed those figures composition in repeating way which is just as identity photograph. It aims to visualise the meaning of "personal identity" through both those identical figure shape in triptych and this portrait painting . The meaning of ' the otherness of people' has been tried to visualized by the using of different block colors, outlines and disfunctional features .During the process of making this painting, I came across a certain of unexpected effect, which also brings me a clue of doing future work .
Identity& Difference I
Identity& Difference(2017) 150X300cm Acrylic mixed with oil on canvas
Them
During this time, I was in a state of confusion. I used to frame a good composition in my mind, but when I face the blank canvas, I can't write. I tried to escape from my previous painting mode and hope to find a new way of expression. I went to see a lot of exhibitions in order to get some new inspiration to develop the painting. But still can not find any direction. But in an accidental situation, when I browsed the pictures on the web page, two characters in a fashion photo attracted me. The vagueness gave me some clues.
I completed a draft based on the original color of the original picture. Since the tonality of the original image is dominated by black and white, its monotonous color creates a pure feeling in the picture, but when I compare it with my picture, the monotonous color is very discordant. . I changed the main tone of the character, but the monotonous feeling of the picture still exists. At this point, I shifted my gaze to try to use a large area of color blocks to break the entire composition. I tried to add that piece of pink color to the picture. The final result gave me a surprise. This connection experience drove me to reconsider the problem of the combination of lines and color blocks in my previous screen. In this picture, I have made a lot of changes, and every change will destroy the original good results. In the course of such repeated coverage and destruction of the original map, many unpredictable and good results will appear. This gives me new experience to learn to control and select the parts that should be preserved in the picture.
Them(2017) 100X100cm Acrylic mixed with oil on acrylic board
Decipher Yourself
In the book The Long Walk by Richard Bachman mentioned a quote from Stephen King, ' They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings? 'What make you?What are you?Who are you? In my conception, these questions only have one answer.Whatever you are and whoever you are ,we are all same creature --humanity .Because of people's thinking ability.So it can be separated from animal, and also because of this ,people have individual difference, which could reflect on individual behaviour, movement, social status , life class, social method and so on .To balance subsistent difference could be realised by the process of deciphering yourself. which is a way to persistently perfect yourself .For this piece of work, I intend to allow audience to be able to consider how far they got in this point of deciphering yourself.
The inspiration and process
Before I started to create this piece of work ,I did a combination of LED -light installation and oil painting ,which is a part of my source of my inspiration .The context of that installation comes from an ancient poem of China which means new things will certainly replace the old things, and the painting was a half part of the poem. The core concept of mine aims to transformed the conditional expressional form of Chinese calligraphy from 2D into 3D.As I originally wanted to made a installation which could be link into my oil painting, and when I completed this work ,I noticed that the existence of oil painting is unnecessary for the presentation of whole work.This kind of unnecessary leaded me to question why easel painting was weakened its expressiveness by installation even has became an accessory.
Decipher Yourself (2017) Acrylic mixed with oil on acrylic board ,LED lights 168X140cm
Anonymous
Portrait explores the idea of an anonymous portrait that could be anyone, including the viewer. It questions the way that we relate to portraits in art.
The inspiration and process
As I used to be interested in the relationship ,between peoples and painted several pieces of works only related on two figures.I realised that when I focused on the relationship between two people or beyond two persons ,I ignored myself, in other word, my subjective consciousness controlled the way of my seeing and interpreting other persons. This stimulated me to think that the situation which happened in myself is not only belong my owns experience,it could be encountered by anyone.So I started to painting this painting .
This painting broke the painting way I used to do.I sticked Chinese rice paper on canvas and then paint on it.I found that is able to create unexpected effect.However,it is hard to control and paint with oil paints and acrylic, so I used vanish to spray on the surface when i have finished each layer.The left problem when I finished is its preservation .As I saw a number of exhibition ,I noticed that a lot of artists are using resin to created .So I would learn and try to use re sin to keep it.
During this period of experimenting with different materials, It is a way of encouraging myself to put more foucus on the exploration of materials .
Anonymous (2017) 100X100cm Acrylic mixed with oil on canvas ,Chinese paper
Relationship between conscious and non-conscious
I assume that if there is no connection or interaction between two people, whether we might lose the ability of comprehending the sense of individual existence.
Throughout this painting I am trying to express an understanding of the sense of existence, in painting ways. In my opinion, individual sense of existence comes from the integration of human’s direct or indirect conscious and perceived psychological expression and conscious. It might be considered an unconscious reflection in terms of thoughts, movements, motions, emotions .For example, when you want to touch something, there should have an acceptor. Once this movement starts and be completed, it will appear some kind of relationship between both interchangeable subjects (receiver and acceptor). It could not cause any relationship if it only exists one subject. The sense of individual existence is presented and shaped with a series of generating relationships between two subjects. I attempt to put this conception into complicated relationship between people and people either in order to identify and get more closer the sense of existence.
While before I start to paint this painting, I did a lot of research and I got some inspiration from Friedrich Einhoff ‘ painting, I realized that I should use the lines to emphasize the figure of back layer, which benefits to express the relationship of non-conscious between people. As the use of dark color, the feeling of this painting convey a sad feeling, but this is not my original intension. I got some feedback from audiences and tutors, they thought that my painting permeate a sense of sadness, on contrary, the atmosphere of sorrow is able to makes me more steady and calm. Just because of this, it makes me question myself again, whether the dark color must exist the psychological hint of gloom and sad. In the next step ,I will continue to discovery this question.
Anonymous (2017) 145X160cm. Acrylic mixed with oil on canvas
Faces (2017) Watercolour on paper
Faces
The series of portraits depict people in various roles ,who are live in London and have different cultural background. My line of sight was always attracted by their face during that times. I observe their facial expression and their behaviors and I received some “information” which is a sorrowful sense. Because most of them and their face always permeated a sense of exhaustion which comes from social pressure. This exhausted expression seems like to be hidden under the thick makeup or within the cold suits, which stimulate me to catch that moment that I felt and I saw.
Starting my MFA I did a new attempt , as I saw a lots of faces which are covered by makeup so I chose foundation(one of types of makeup)to paint and then mixed with water color. At the beginning , I found that the material of foundation is oily which is unable to be mixed with water color. However, as I painted on paper, the foundation dry so fast, which causes an unexpected effect with water color. This attempt stimulates me to more focus on the choice of materials, which quite benefits my works in the next steps in terms of method of expression .
Identity& Difference III
The aim of making this work is to keep develop my last installation's concept ,in which which re-transforming the ancient Chinese written form from 2D to 3D. The illustrated texts by LED lights are asked to be related to my painting's perpective, which meaning is 'Identity and different'.
Last year, I tried to make my first installation. The concept of that light installation is to convert the Chinese traditional calligraphy from 2D into 3D. However, in the process of installing , I needed to connect every electrical wire of each part light bar ,in which lights up all of them. In the final representation, the combination of a hundred of electrical wires and lights bar showed a very chaotic feeling. The more closer the audience look at it ,which influenced the effects of the expression of the entire work. However, this result triggered me to think about how to figure out to avoid or hide those wires. Also because of the material that my choice is an LED lights bar , it is quite light, which caused that If you hang it in space, you cannot precisely control the shape of each font . In order to solve the this problem, I chose PLY wood to fixed as the each LED lights bar and suspended them separately in the space.
However, considering of if the board is hung in the space, this method still cannot hide the wire very well, so I chose to make a square wooden frame instead of hanging. During the design of making that frame, Ian Monroe gave me advice. He suggested that I could make an identical square frame and put it on the top of the separated board. This method reduced the boredom feeling of the last representation.
Re -- written
Since the end of last term, I was always thinking about if I could find a way to explore and develop the expression method of my oil painting.I moved my focus on installation，which also aims to adopt it to link into my painting.
This is me first installation in my life .The work is based on the idea : Reincarnation. I am inspired by the history, atmosphere of Crypt Gallery where has witnessed the developmental process of human life. It was used for coffin burials. This situation naturally triggers me to the concept of death but also meant rebirth. Every kinds of relive always brings us unexpected improvement . Based on it, I chose a well-known Chinese poem as this work ‘s content, which is about ‘Reincarnation" . Under the premise of keeping the original shape of Iesser seal, which is a style of Calligraphy ,adopted in the Qin Dynasty for the purpose of standardizing the script, this installation is tying to use another way to re-present this poem and also aims to find a another way to re-transform the ancient Chinese written form from 2D to 3D .I also make a painting ,as a comparison between the form of original presentation (2D) and re-presentation in space(3D), which in its context is a half of that Chinese poem.
In the process of making this work,I encountered a big problem. ,As the restriction of this material , The requirement of cutting is restricted in each 5 certre meters otherwise the light will doesn't lighting ,which process means that once the completely electrocircuit is be inaccurately cut, the only way of lighting is recover electrocircuit through soldering.As this result, I did a lot of researches about how to do soldering through online tutorial and practiced a lots .
This work raised the question of that the easel painting was weakened its expressiveness by installation even has became an accessory.This question guides me to consider their essential differences between painting and installation .So I started to create my next work with this question .