Three years have passed since your last solo exhibition “Journey Ends - In Dignified Throes” and now comes “The Outsider.” During the past three years, you lost your hearing for uniden- tified cause despite trying orthodox medicine as well as alternative therapies. Some of the experiences related to folk beliefs and mystic power has been transformed into to the works you presented in the project “Searching for the Origin – Little God,” which won the first prize of 2016 Taipei Arts Awards. What else have you gone through during this period? Was there anything you wished to achieve?
What you are asking is way too grand (laugh). I was struggling to survive during the first part of these three years, in terms of both physical condition and artistic practice. Perhaps the slump in my art is related to my physical condition, but I am not aware of the connection. I kept paint- ing during that time. However, deep in my heart I just knew I wasn’t doing well. After a day’s work, I would strongly doubt whether there is the need to continue the same painting on the next day. I simply hoped to maintain my ability to create rather than looking up to pursue some greater goal. Barely surviving took me a lot of strength.
One day morning, I painted a face of young man and suddenly realized there is something in it. It feels like God has not abandoned me, my talent is still with me, and I can still create wor- thy traces. I cherished it so much and really wished the ongoing painting would still look good when I stepped in my studio the next morning. Anyway, that painting was the turning point. It was like a robe thrown over by someone, and by holding on it, I could go on to paint. Full of gratitude, I pulled myself together slowly. I really thank God for helping me, despite I am not religious.
Would it be appropriate to say that you have found inspiration?
I do not look for inspiration. Living in an age of massive information, it is no longer necessary to look for inspiration. I do not pursue inspiration, but a state of mind. However, the right state of mind is impossible to pursue, either. I was still the same person with my good hand when I got stuck, but whatever I painted was lifeless. When my condition is good, the inspiration comes all the time. It feels like I don’t even need inspiration, I am the inspiration. The brushstroke and color I paint on the masonite would give me feedback, and thus begins a conversation between me and the work. It feels like my lungs are full of fresh air and I simply know the resulting work would be good during the process. That is why I believe that the state of mind is more important than the re- sult. The result will be good if the state is right. However, you still have to paint even in the most deathly still. It is like sleep, a doze could bring about a deep sleep.
Regarding the exhibition title “The Outsider,” you said you feel like an outsider in terms of po- litical viewpoint, ethnic status, peer relation, and even aesthetics. Could you explain why you feel so?
First of all, my surname immediately reveals that my family came from Mainland China. It is impossible to neglect my identity as an outsider to this island. My surname can be traced back to the Qiang people of the Western Xia Empire, also a regime at the margin of ancient China. It has always been hard for me to be part of any group, and I am aware of being rejected and marginalized. This is not necessary to be inferior, but just not in the mainstream. My political standpoint is rebellious offense in the eye of my senior family members, and at the same time incompatible to that of my peers. It is not “between,” but floating out there. Losing my hearing has enhanced this sense of floating.
As an artist, my daily routine and affairs are also quite alternative to most of the people in this modern society. I often ponder over the illusion and reality of life. I only socialize with very few people in the real world. I often find myself walking outside of the public routine. I am along in the studio when most people of my age are working in the offices. I would go out sometimes and might pass by some marginal people. I am aware of their marginalized status due to my sensibility to my own conditions. Around 5:30 in the afternoon, I would take my twin girls home from the kindergarten and wait for my wife coming back from the office. The reality would grasp me again from the illusion of the marginal world.
As in the art community, I failed to join any kind of group in Taiwan, perhaps due to my stays in Spain and Britain in my early years. I used to feel anxious about this, for not being commented or discussed. However, I have adopted to the situation over the years and even feel superior that I can endeavor to what I love with more freedom and easiness.
In which way do you feel you are out of tune with others regarding aesthetics?
People would value a piece of art to be good according to the emotions it expresses, such as passion, darkness or struggle. It is not that I am not moved by the work, but I do not value this part so highly. To me, emotional power is not the main reason for a work to be great. Take Peking opera as an example, I do not seek morality meaning or romantic joys and sorrows when watching it, but rather enjoy the spiritual state surpassing the plot. For instance, when the actress Catherine Wang sings, the voice vibrates from her abdominal cavity, through her ribcage, out from her mouth and reaches high up in the sky. To me, this is the highest level of art. Another actress I like is Shi Yi Hong. Her acting is precise while contained, crispy and relax. Her gaze penetrates who she looks at, and the meaning of what she sings no longer matters. She has departed from the drama and gone beyond to a higher state.
A sense of alienation lingers in the whole exhibition. The man in Bending Down, for instance, looks solitary and acts weirdly, seems to be spellbound in his own world. The man in a yellow coat in The Stranger is obviously an outsider to the others. A hole opens in his chest through which we can see the horizon far off. Moreover, Cookey, the dog you used to have and once an important image in your painting, reappears!
Yes. Actually, Cookey just showed itself spontaneously. When I painted the man wearing a checked top, I felt like to have something like a pet down there, so there it is. Some people might know I consciously avoid painting Cookey nowadays, but since it came by on his own, I decided to keep it there. The transparent window on the man in yellow coat might be taken as a gaze towards his homeland.
People in my painting are not necessarily spellbound in their own worlds. Many of their eyes are half closed with compassion and there is an air of religious detachment. You are right, people in my paintings are alienated from the environment where they situate. Ego is very interesting. My ego is looking at me from a distance while I am talking to you. There is a distance existing between me and my ego.
There is always something odd about the figures in your paintings. For example, the Christ in Christ in Boots turns his back to us in a strange pose. His body stretches out with tension. Nails are on his back and shoulders and his left hand is missing. There seems to be a suppressed pain.
The fact is that I was not thinking of expressing pain at all. The painting indeed implies pain, but pain was not a concern when I made it. It just developed so. I did not intend to paint the Christ at the beginning neither. I started from the torso, and then the limbs. It was not until I finished the head that I realized he is the Christ. I never know what a piece of work will become when I start it. What I have been dealing is the picture itself rather than projecting any mean- ing or emotion. The resulting painting might express something, but it is not the main concern of my practice. A painting is a painting. It tells things in its own right.
Old Sports Shoe is an intimate gaze at an old shoe. A foot seems to be wearing it but also seems to not. Is there a story about it?
A pair of my brother’s broken sports shoes sat on the shelf in my studio about 10 years ago. I applied oil paint on them as some ready-made material. Something interesting seems to be developed at that time, but later I lost interests. I saw that pair of shoes recently and decided to make a painting of them, and it turned out to be a shoe without paints on it.
Not all the people in your painting are necessarily lonely, for example, Figures in Friend Wear- ing Glasses, Friend Wearing Glasses and the Professor, and Puppet (Captive) have companions. What kinds of relationship do you depict in these paintings?
I like the idea of “double”, such as Gemini, twin towers. It resembles mirror image or reflection, but not exactly the same since members in the relationship are independent from each other. I am fascinated with twinity, and also feel so cool to have my twin girls. I have been catching the idea of double secretly in my painting, and those you mentioned manifest the idea directly. Take Puppet (Captive) as an example, two men share a body – they both have control over the body but not completely. They are ancillary and captive to each other. It is often that one of them is more subsidiary and weaker in power, like the man at the right in Puppet (Captive).I found this very interesting. One does not have full control over his or her body even when having it all to his- or herself.
