Writing
The Illuminated Mundane
I am always fascinated by the distance between what we see optically and what we understand logically. I and my wife once talked about whether cow's milk is a dairy consumption for human or just a lactation product for calves. Most people see steak as food but in my vegetarian wife's eyes it is simply a piece of flesh. So what defines an object, and how things truly exist? The way we understand an object varies due to our unique perception and judgement, and the understanding itself constantly evolves over time and space. But when we look at a picture, the object depicted tends to be unchanged alongside with its affixed context set within the moment it is produced, and what we experience is therefore a static condition. That says, how an object is depicted in a painting, at the same time, is a decision of how is it supposed to be seen. It seems that our life functions by following convention without much need of making interpretation. While things are determined by specific purpose nowadays, those unclassified will be lost in limbo. In an attempt to investigate our shared experiences of seeing, I try to study the so-called tedious moments of daily life which may seem less worthy to be narrated in my painting. As the repetitive instant and insignificant items wander and expand, my choice of depiction may as well become an open answer to how an undefined matter can be understood in the state where hypothetical constructs are minimized.
I am always fascinated by the distance between what we see optically and what we understand logically. I and my wife once talked about whether cow's milk is a dairy consumption for human or just a lactation product for calves. Most people see steak as food but in my vegetarian wife's eyes it is simply a piece of flesh. So what defines an object, and how things truly exist? The way we understand an object varies due to our unique perception and judgement, and the understanding itself constantly evolves over time and space. But when we look at a picture, the object depicted tends to be unchanged alongside with its affixed context set within the moment it is produced, and what we experience is therefore a static condition. That says, how an object is depicted in a painting, at the same time, is a decision of how is it supposed to be seen. It seems that our life functions by following convention without much need of making interpretation. While things are determined by specific purpose nowadays, those unclassified will be lost in limbo. In an attempt to investigate our shared experiences of seeing, I try to study the so-called tedious moments of daily life which may seem less worthy to be narrated in my painting. As the repetitive instant and insignificant items wander and expand, my choice of depiction may as well become an open answer to how an undefined matter can be understood in the state where hypothetical constructs are minimized.
Of Humdrum Moments / 有關乏味的片刻
Experiences that cannot be narrated, prosaic situations—these humdrum moments that exist as bits and pieces in our impressions always occur right in front of us. Our everyday lives are imbued with these moments that escape our consciousness. Although constantly negated, they are never lost because they occupy almost every aspect of our lives. We overlook these moments, perhaps, because we cannot locate even ourselves in them: the physical level operates under the rules of space and time, but no narrative ensues from the conscious level.
These years, I have been reflecting on what “everyday” means in my work. I realized that what genuinely triggers my curiosity is these humdrum moments: how we perceive objects and phenomena, and our states when we try to understand our relation to them.
These humdrum situations occur when our consciousness is engaged with the context before our eyes but fails to find a cognitive mode by which to process and translate such experiences. We are bereft of any ready concepts by which to process these appearances, and yet these logically disjunct appearances confront us vis-à-vis. It is thus uneasy to incorporate them in the timeline that we are familiar with. We tend to forget or neglect them for the convenience of narrating “our days”.
I think the major transformation in my work has been my understanding of appearances. In the past, I thought my work was all about the so-called “everyday” appearances that always happen. But now, looking back, my work is not really about what always happens. Instead, those undefined appearances that fall outside my logical system are the exact opposites of “everyday” things or kinds of things. Those are the meaningless appearances that, for most people, are left out of the process of understanding life.
It is easy to notice and chase after matters that are rare but logically possible, or matters that are logically impossible but imaginable. But when we exhaust all logical possibilities, after the loss of means to compose concepts for our everyday lives, we will then have to confront the restlessness and boredom. My work puts me into these meaningless moments, and makes me rethink my relation to appearances, searching for a way to perceive the ambiguous and unclear. It is this perceptive sensitivity that we lack most.
不能敍述的事情;平平無奇的場景;那些乏味的片段,非常零碎地存在我們的印象中,也一直發生在我們的眼前,在我們意識到的前一刻,一直充斥於我們的生活中。它卻是不斷的被否認,但它不會感到失落,因為它幾乎佔據我們生活的一切。我們忽略乏味的片段,或許是在那一刻,我們找不到自身存在的位置,即使在物理上卻主宰了空間的運作,但於意識上卻得不到被敍述的意義。
在這幾年的創作上,我一直在想“日常”是一個怎樣的概念,但反覆思索後,我發現真正引起我好奇的是那些乏味的片刻 —— 我們是如何意會看到的物象,我們是處於一個怎麼樣的狀態去了解與物象的關係。
我們會遇上乏味無聊的情景,是因為我們意志集中在眼前景物時,腦袋卻找不到合適的言詞或設定去解釋它。當我們失去了對看到景物的既有觀念,同時見證一些邏輯上不能串連的事件,這些事件便很難放進我們熟悉的生活時間線上,所以我們傾向把它們遺忘或省略,方便我們敍述屬於自己的 “一天” 。
若要說我創作上的轉變,我想應該是對表象上的理解。以往我認為我的作品裡頭,是一些經常發生被我們稱之為 “日常”的事,但現在看來,我作品中的景象卻是不論經常發生與否。然而,我的邏輯系統不能被定義的事情,正正是那些跟可以被歸納為 “日常” 或其他類別的事情相反,被看待成沒有意義,被人們在了解生活的概念中抽離了。
我們可以很容易察覺和追逐邏輯上成立,但很罕有發生的事情;或邏輯上不成立,但思想上可以誕生的事件,而到了邏輯上的可能性花光了的時候,我們或許要面對那種失去編寫生活概念的不安和納悶。我的創作,就好像是將自己放在那些沒有意義的片段裡,重新思索物象之間的關係,尋找方法去意會那些曖昧糢糊的片刻,那是我們現在最缺乏的感受性觸覺。
Experiences that cannot be narrated, prosaic situations—these humdrum moments that exist as bits and pieces in our impressions always occur right in front of us. Our everyday lives are imbued with these moments that escape our consciousness. Although constantly negated, they are never lost because they occupy almost every aspect of our lives. We overlook these moments, perhaps, because we cannot locate even ourselves in them: the physical level operates under the rules of space and time, but no narrative ensues from the conscious level.
These years, I have been reflecting on what “everyday” means in my work. I realized that what genuinely triggers my curiosity is these humdrum moments: how we perceive objects and phenomena, and our states when we try to understand our relation to them.
These humdrum situations occur when our consciousness is engaged with the context before our eyes but fails to find a cognitive mode by which to process and translate such experiences. We are bereft of any ready concepts by which to process these appearances, and yet these logically disjunct appearances confront us vis-à-vis. It is thus uneasy to incorporate them in the timeline that we are familiar with. We tend to forget or neglect them for the convenience of narrating “our days”.
I think the major transformation in my work has been my understanding of appearances. In the past, I thought my work was all about the so-called “everyday” appearances that always happen. But now, looking back, my work is not really about what always happens. Instead, those undefined appearances that fall outside my logical system are the exact opposites of “everyday” things or kinds of things. Those are the meaningless appearances that, for most people, are left out of the process of understanding life.
It is easy to notice and chase after matters that are rare but logically possible, or matters that are logically impossible but imaginable. But when we exhaust all logical possibilities, after the loss of means to compose concepts for our everyday lives, we will then have to confront the restlessness and boredom. My work puts me into these meaningless moments, and makes me rethink my relation to appearances, searching for a way to perceive the ambiguous and unclear. It is this perceptive sensitivity that we lack most.
不能敍述的事情;平平無奇的場景;那些乏味的片段,非常零碎地存在我們的印象中,也一直發生在我們的眼前,在我們意識到的前一刻,一直充斥於我們的生活中。它卻是不斷的被否認,但它不會感到失落,因為它幾乎佔據我們生活的一切。我們忽略乏味的片段,或許是在那一刻,我們找不到自身存在的位置,即使在物理上卻主宰了空間的運作,但於意識上卻得不到被敍述的意義。
在這幾年的創作上,我一直在想“日常”是一個怎樣的概念,但反覆思索後,我發現真正引起我好奇的是那些乏味的片刻 —— 我們是如何意會看到的物象,我們是處於一個怎麼樣的狀態去了解與物象的關係。
我們會遇上乏味無聊的情景,是因為我們意志集中在眼前景物時,腦袋卻找不到合適的言詞或設定去解釋它。當我們失去了對看到景物的既有觀念,同時見證一些邏輯上不能串連的事件,這些事件便很難放進我們熟悉的生活時間線上,所以我們傾向把它們遺忘或省略,方便我們敍述屬於自己的 “一天” 。
若要說我創作上的轉變,我想應該是對表象上的理解。以往我認為我的作品裡頭,是一些經常發生被我們稱之為 “日常”的事,但現在看來,我作品中的景象卻是不論經常發生與否。然而,我的邏輯系統不能被定義的事情,正正是那些跟可以被歸納為 “日常” 或其他類別的事情相反,被看待成沒有意義,被人們在了解生活的概念中抽離了。
我們可以很容易察覺和追逐邏輯上成立,但很罕有發生的事情;或邏輯上不成立,但思想上可以誕生的事件,而到了邏輯上的可能性花光了的時候,我們或許要面對那種失去編寫生活概念的不安和納悶。我的創作,就好像是將自己放在那些沒有意義的片段裡,重新思索物象之間的關係,尋找方法去意會那些曖昧糢糊的片刻,那是我們現在最缺乏的感受性觸覺。
On Out of The Ordinary / 關於"平淡亦然"
I have been thinking that, man, whenever he is awake, his eyes must be open, looking around. However, for most of the time, we are only manifesting the functional property of our “looking” that serves and sustains our living. This does not mean that we are consciously “gazing” different scenes around us. A scene is something that lies between our cognition and perception. It does not have a generic exposition or definition by itself, but stamps certain impression in our mind just before our perception, understanding and narrative of it occur. This experience of gazing, subjectively complete though objectively fragmentary, is exactly the pivot of my art. This is the universal and yet innate existential experience that I want to delve. I seldom plan for my paintings – no sketch, no planned outcome, like writing. The subject matter of my works is always based on my meticulous observation of my own private life through the gazing eyes. I do not want to miss anything around me because of the intimidating aura pressing from our materialistic society. I do not want to miss any delicate part of life itself. To me, this is my devotion and pursuit of what is meant by being alive. I search for equivalence of my cognition from the details of everyday life. This assumes the possibility of negating existing beliefs and the process of re-constructing a new belief system. So, painting is, to me, an extension of life. I reserve the space on a piece of blankness for myself to process my experiences. The landscape I constructed in my works is my personal archive for reminding myself that I once owned such understanding towards such moment. Sometimes, I do ponder over the importance of the subject matters in my works. The reason is that a plethora of simplified symbols of things already overwhelms our society, like sunshine, no matter when and where, only sends out the same nuances with its actual varied textures and forms of appearance being obliterated. Grand topics fascinate me, but meanwhile, it is also my intention to obviate human constructs like politics, history and religion in my works because these are, to me, the furthest from the reality of human nature. They sift a lot of content of life for the sake of realizing certain function or end, and make us forget the most important things about just being alive. Laziness and idleness – some of these snapshots of quotidian life disdained by our society just thrill me, and upon close study, a big overlooked part of the subject matters unfolds.
我在想,人每天醒來至睡覺前都是張開眼睛看東西的,但大部分我們用眼睛「看」的時 候,都只使用了其工具性的一面,以輔助及成就生活,而非有意識地「觀看」四周的景 像。景像是一種介乎認知和觸覺之間之物,它沒有普遍的解釋和定義,在剛剛被感知、 理解和出現叙述之前,在我們的意識裡留下印記。這種主觀地完全但在客觀而言並不完 整的觀看經驗正正是我創作的重心,我希望探討我們這一種與生俱來的存在經驗。 在作畫之前我甚少為畫作打算,既沒有草圖也沒有預設的效果,就像寫作一樣,內容緊 扣透過我自身仔細觀看的私人生活。我不想因為在物質社會的氛圍之下而錯過身邊的內 容,不想錯過細膩的生活經驗,這是對活著的一種忠誠和追求,在生活的細節裡尋找與 自己的認知相對應的位置,同時也隱含著否定認知的可能以及重新建構的過程。在我而 言,作畫是生活的延伸,在空白的空間裡預留位置讓自己消化經驗,作品所建構的風景 則是留給自己的印證,提醒自己曾對這些事物有這些理解。 我不時反復思量作品的內容是否有確實存在的價值,原因是社會上充斥著太多把事物簡 化了的符號,就好像陽光在任何處境也一樣地指定代表著甚麼似的,令人忘了陽光也有 不同的質地和不同的出現形式。平日我思考很多議題,但也很刻意地不把政治、歷史、 宗教等人為的建構拉進我的作品裡,因為人為建構往往都反而是離人性最遠的東西,為 達致某些功用或目的而省略了很多生命裡的內容,令人忘了活著最重要的東西。令我感 興趣的是懶惰、無聊等這些被社會唾棄的生活片刻,在經過重新思考後更不時會發現很 多被忽略的內容。
I have been thinking that, man, whenever he is awake, his eyes must be open, looking around. However, for most of the time, we are only manifesting the functional property of our “looking” that serves and sustains our living. This does not mean that we are consciously “gazing” different scenes around us. A scene is something that lies between our cognition and perception. It does not have a generic exposition or definition by itself, but stamps certain impression in our mind just before our perception, understanding and narrative of it occur. This experience of gazing, subjectively complete though objectively fragmentary, is exactly the pivot of my art. This is the universal and yet innate existential experience that I want to delve. I seldom plan for my paintings – no sketch, no planned outcome, like writing. The subject matter of my works is always based on my meticulous observation of my own private life through the gazing eyes. I do not want to miss anything around me because of the intimidating aura pressing from our materialistic society. I do not want to miss any delicate part of life itself. To me, this is my devotion and pursuit of what is meant by being alive. I search for equivalence of my cognition from the details of everyday life. This assumes the possibility of negating existing beliefs and the process of re-constructing a new belief system. So, painting is, to me, an extension of life. I reserve the space on a piece of blankness for myself to process my experiences. The landscape I constructed in my works is my personal archive for reminding myself that I once owned such understanding towards such moment. Sometimes, I do ponder over the importance of the subject matters in my works. The reason is that a plethora of simplified symbols of things already overwhelms our society, like sunshine, no matter when and where, only sends out the same nuances with its actual varied textures and forms of appearance being obliterated. Grand topics fascinate me, but meanwhile, it is also my intention to obviate human constructs like politics, history and religion in my works because these are, to me, the furthest from the reality of human nature. They sift a lot of content of life for the sake of realizing certain function or end, and make us forget the most important things about just being alive. Laziness and idleness – some of these snapshots of quotidian life disdained by our society just thrill me, and upon close study, a big overlooked part of the subject matters unfolds.
我在想,人每天醒來至睡覺前都是張開眼睛看東西的,但大部分我們用眼睛「看」的時 候,都只使用了其工具性的一面,以輔助及成就生活,而非有意識地「觀看」四周的景 像。景像是一種介乎認知和觸覺之間之物,它沒有普遍的解釋和定義,在剛剛被感知、 理解和出現叙述之前,在我們的意識裡留下印記。這種主觀地完全但在客觀而言並不完 整的觀看經驗正正是我創作的重心,我希望探討我們這一種與生俱來的存在經驗。 在作畫之前我甚少為畫作打算,既沒有草圖也沒有預設的效果,就像寫作一樣,內容緊 扣透過我自身仔細觀看的私人生活。我不想因為在物質社會的氛圍之下而錯過身邊的內 容,不想錯過細膩的生活經驗,這是對活著的一種忠誠和追求,在生活的細節裡尋找與 自己的認知相對應的位置,同時也隱含著否定認知的可能以及重新建構的過程。在我而 言,作畫是生活的延伸,在空白的空間裡預留位置讓自己消化經驗,作品所建構的風景 則是留給自己的印證,提醒自己曾對這些事物有這些理解。 我不時反復思量作品的內容是否有確實存在的價值,原因是社會上充斥著太多把事物簡 化了的符號,就好像陽光在任何處境也一樣地指定代表著甚麼似的,令人忘了陽光也有 不同的質地和不同的出現形式。平日我思考很多議題,但也很刻意地不把政治、歷史、 宗教等人為的建構拉進我的作品裡,因為人為建構往往都反而是離人性最遠的東西,為 達致某些功用或目的而省略了很多生命裡的內容,令人忘了活著最重要的東西。令我感 興趣的是懶惰、無聊等這些被社會唾棄的生活片刻,在經過重新思考後更不時會發現很 多被忽略的內容。