Artist Statment

​

My art is about rethinking the significance and role of vision in the context of contemporary art. It aims to interpret a gaze, showing an entire field of sight in one sole point of focus, surrounded by a large unfocused blurry field. This approach is based on my understanding of the limitations of human vision, involving our inability to see many planes of focus simultaneously. 

​

I use Chinese untreated and treated Xuan Paper. Untreated paper allows water to spread; the treated paper does not. On untreated paper, I splash watery colors, and let the color spread and interacted to create blurred abstractions that are both deliberate and serendipitous. On treated paper, I employ a “wet on wet” process,  dye layer after layer many times to accumulate the value I need and still keep it ambiguous.  I blend colors, eliminating brush strokes and sharp borders. With both techniques of “splashing” and “wet on wet”, I try to achieve a soft, hazy, charming, mysterious, and rich visual effect. In contrast, at the clear point, I depict the image with solid lines and exquisite details or patterns. Sometimes the patterns are designed to echo the blurry field for representing the unshown image. I emphasize the difference between clarity and blurriness, employing gestures of both revealing and hiding, and creating tension by pushing both to extreme degrees. 

 

My work inherits the lineage of Chinese Song Dynasty meticulous painting, applying a contemporary perspective. My influences range from Lin Fengming's innovation of Chinese painting to Gerhard Richter’s blurriness, Susan Lichtman’s subtle colors, Gustav Klimt’s patterns, and Hans Hofmann’s push and pull method.