Shifted from painting to illustration, then shift back again, collage has helped me a lot in this transition process, one of the biggest changes is that I started to enjoy drawing. I started to draw without thinking too much about the outcome, it was more like meditation, like a child having fun, when I was drawing, I would be happy, I enjoyed the moment. However, in the previous illustration process, I was more likely to design what I wanted to draw in advance, then find some references, do some research, think of some narrative, do some character design, and then create it. I actually have already had a specific idea of what colours to use and how to use them, and then I create the illustration afterwards. The process of creating an illustration is like an assembly line, that is, when I draw, it takes a long time, but there is no strong creative process in the artmaking process.
But painting/drawing now is different for me, every second is like the branching of a tree, it can go to a different result in the next second, I don't know what my works will bring until I finish it, and what kind of work it will be at the end. So this is a change in my approach to painting, that is, I am more in the moment, enjoying the moment, having fun in the moment, than designing, than anticipating.
For me, I thought about the difference between illustration and drawing before.
At first I thought that illustration was included in contemporary art, that is, that there was no difference between illustration and painting. Perhaps illustration is more commercial or decorative, but at the same time I thought that the paintings of folk art are also very decorative, so this is not a reason to distinguish between illustration and painting, so I thought that it might be that illustration is more purposeful, because illustration, illustration, didn't it start out as an accompaniment to a book, as you can hear from the name, so it is to So it is a drawing that tells a story or a text. But painting, it is not purposeful.
It can be about the artist's childhood experiences, it can be about contemporary social issues, it can be about the universe, it can be about spirituality, it can be about love, and then I find that there is a boundary between illustration and painting, and I personally define it by the term subconscious. It's the painting in contemporary art that goes deeper into the subconscious.
In the creative process, bravery is greater than design, intuition is greater than effect, and your state of mind is reflected in your painting without you realising it.
It may take some time, or a few years, before you can look back and understand the meaning of the painting in the context of the current social and cultural background and your creative process. faster than your creator's own understanding, you could even say that it is not us who are creating, it is not us who are painting, it is the painting that wants to be painted, the inspiration that wants to be expressed, the art that wants to be created, so they choose us, and we as artists need to be their devotees, spending our time and energy, our sincere expectations and the courage to challenge to spare no effort for them, and then in What the artists themselves can gain from this process is, as I said earlier, the purest and most supreme joy and pleasure I feel I have gained. The outcome is not so important.
I was a rather utilitarian person in terms of painting, and when I was painting I would think about whether my painting would please the audience, whether people would like it, and how many likes and retweets it would get, so I was actually quite burdened when I was painting, I might have painted with my heart for a few hours, and the painting that came out with a little bit of detail was not liked by anyone, but the kind of very cute, very simple painting style that I painted casually, but people liked it. So at that time I was actually, I can't say I was a bit lost, but I probably wanted to pursue those things more.
So when it came to drawing, I would be very scared. Including people are now used to using ipads to draw, I use the ipad to draw every time, draw wrongly then double finger tap to withdraw, then again you can use the ipad to do a lot of different effects. In this process, you may get lost in the effect and the possibility of withdrawal.
Then all you think about is like the branching of the tree, you think about exploring different possibilities instead of thinking about how to compensate for the present picture, how to solve the present moment. I don't necessarily need collage now, but at the time it changed me, it told me to be brave, it told me to try without fear.
Because there is no such thing as an absolute mistake, you can't withdraw the painting, but you can cover it, and as long as you don't say it's over, the painting will never be over, you can cut something out and draw something, collage it onto the painting, and if you don't like it, you can put another piece of paper over it, and not only will it not devastate your painting, it will add texture to your painting. So it's an encouragement for me to be braver, to challenge myself, to add new possibilities to the picture and not to think too much about it.
One of the things I find interesting in my paintings is that as artists we have to control the boundary between abstraction and figuration. In my paintings I don't deliberately paint the human body, shapes and trees in a very figurative way, because sometimes if you are too figurative you lose a lot of space for expression and imagination in the picture, and you can't be too abstract. Personally, I don't like my works to be too abstract, because too abstract may sometimes rely on the text to explain them. The effect of the picture is poetic, not realistic, not abstract, not very figurative, so to speak, and this is the position I want my pictures to reach.
The human body is first and foremost an object and it is also a process of emotional catharsis. First of all, we are human beings and we feel more empathy for the human body. We have empathy for every movement of every part of the human body, we are sensitive to it. For example, if a person is in a crouching position, we as human beings will be very sensitive and will notice that the human body is crouching and that it may have some emotions. In my work, the human bodies are sometimes superimposed together to form a new object, and sometimes they appear alone to express their own ideas. When superimposed together, I want to express a movement, I want to express the state of the human body that is in motion at the moment, the state of the person who is in front of us, in front of the artist at the moment. At the same time I also want to express the presence of the artist in front of the picture, the presence of the artist. So I wanted to show this moving part in the picture, and that movement can also show the spirituality of human beings. Because to me, my criterion is that everything is fluid, the flow of people, the flow of things, the flow of everything, the flow of emotions, and all this flow can be expressed in these overlapping bodies and movements.
Also, from the dynamics of the people and the overlapping parts, you can see the space, you can see the space in the picture. This is what I wanted to achieve in the picture. The dynamics, the integration and the space in the picture, these things and the human body itself form something like a human landscape, a human body that is also a landscape, a medium of expression, a medium of emotion.
What is a painting of the human body? What is painting a human being? Is painting a model the only way to paint a person? If you paint a pair of shoes used by a person, which are lying crumpled in the corner of the wall, no one has looked at them for a long time, if you paint these shoes well, in my eyes, it is also a human body painting. A painting of a landscape is sometimes a painting of the human body, a desert, a hill, these are also paintings of the human body, a tree is sometimes a painting of the human body. So in my pictures you can also feel that I am actually using these things. And the human body, nature and so on to express some emotions and spirituality and I feel more inclined to the flow of meaning in these aspects.
I want to feel the subject with my eyes, because he is in front of me I see him I think about him, I imagine his character, his experiences, and then try to express my feelings about him with my brush. But at the same time, he is not an individual, everyone is not an individual, in the context of an era, he is always a reflection of the era, so when you paint him, you are not only painting a background, you are painting a category of people or a generation, or the time of this generation, but you are also painting yourself, everything you paint is yourself, your painting is yourself, so when you paint you have to think about this when you paint.
First of all I think we have to look at the spiritual side of things, there are already a lot of artists who are looking at the very real issues of the moment, but I want to talk more about that, and often I think what artists do is more limited, but, as an artist myself, what I want to do is to help people with mental health issues, but not to educate people in a scientific way about mental health. As an artist, I would rather use spirituality, religion, philosophy and beauty to show people how to live well.
To know how to live well, we have to explore death, because death is a topic we can't get around, so an understanding of death makes us appreciate the present moment better, gives us a better understanding of what we are doing, and you can see yourself more clearly.
The question I often ask myself is if I were to die now, if I were to have a car accident tomorrow, I might not be in this world, am I living a satisfying life now, do I feel like I'm wasting my time with what I'm doing now, I often ask myself that. So in my picture, I am also hoping, I don't want to run away from this question, I don't want to run away from this question.
Thinking about death makes me understand more that I have to cherish every little beauty in my life, I have to cherish every little joy in the present moment. That's what I want to tell you through the images, is to cherish your own feelings in the moment, to think about what beauty is, this is important to me, this beauty is important to me.
What is beauty? Because thinking about death, I think about beauty. Your emotions must be beautiful, your pain, your fears can even be beautiful, it's not just pleasure that's beautiful, it's not just needs being met that's beautiful, there's a lot of other beauty, beauty is many elements, a lot of other beauty we can experience, and all of these things it actually turns out to be a desire for love, it all comes out of love. So in these processes you can also appreciate love. Your fear of parting is actually your longing for love, it's actually the love you've had, you get sad when you die, you get scared, and actually all these things are also love. So I am trying to use my work to make people think, to make people more accepting that what you think you are experiencing is something very difficult, very painful, but maybe what you are experiencing can be love, can be beauty. That's why I say that we have to think about death in order to think about love, to think about beauty and to really live well.
First of all, what I want for myself is that I hope I can always enjoy painting and not be too abducted by utilitarian things again. I want painting to be a clean slate for me. I hope that at least the work I create on my own is something I enjoy.
I hope that from now on I can find more of my own painting language and be better able to express what I really want to express, and I also hope that I will always have the courage to experiment and make mistakes, so that I can keep moving forward in painting.
Or go backwards. Or stay put. At least I hope I am changing all the time, not stopping painting, no matter where I am going, I hope I keep painting.
I can't say that I'm arranging an artistic path for myself, because I don't think it can be arranged for me, because the artistic path doesn't need me, it's me who needs art, it's me who needs it as an expression of me, it's me who needs to talk, I need to sing, I need it, so I can't arrange it or anything. All I can say is that I am happy that I have it and can use art as an expression to speak and to express and to sing.
So for me, my dream about art I hope I can achieve is that, whatever happens, I hope I won't stop loving art, and I can keep talking and keep painting.