Head Study-Portrait of a Giant

Artist Statement

statement The familiar, or the unfamiliar...... I carried out a kindly, accommodating drawing, holding the form to the very end so as to give a little more help in grasping the existence of that thing. My dissatisfaction with familiar form grew steadily, and when this was reproduced as it was on the surface, it felt extremely rough, even uncomfortable. It was so back then, but is it not so now........ I have never simply thrown out things I had once used. Taking apart a broken printer, I found quite decent parts inside. A few motors and gears, metal rods, strange components, used-up nails, used-up ballpoint pens, the now-old CDs, the legs of the children's desks, and so on....... Within them, parts that had each had their own function are recombined and produce an entirely new function as a result, or become the underdrawing for somewhat classical, labor-intensive images that are reborn as printmaking. The tools used in making the work are not made from new materials but are aggregates of things already made. The tools, rather than letting me control everything, generate unexpected images and motions that are hard to keep in check. Focusing on this slightly complicated, ridiculous process can be seen as having begun from my dissatisfaction with the form-and-color (形彩) I had tried to show in my earlier work. Like the absurdity of a reality where one has no choice but to dress up and disguise oneself ever more in order to grow stronger, I repeated the act of arming myself with images that felt unfamiliar to me and confining myself within them. I wanted to escape that frame, and now I wanted to be free, at least on the surface, in less accommodating, less specific forms. The common feature of the tools I currently use is multiple. This is the meaning shared between the tool's mode of expression and the concept of edition in printmaking. It also carries a meaning of recycling. Through these familiar-and-yet-unfamiliar tools, the image is born as a face — a familiar enough image — by way of printmaking, the medium familiar to me, and drawing, but even that image is unfamiliar. In the sense that it is an experimental image and method, I attach the word "head study (頭像研究)" before the subtitle of the work. For years I have drawn, cut up, and printed faces as my subject. Rather than being shown as a still scene, it was an attempt at a flow that wanted to shake something within the viewer. That something would be emotion, and beyond that, empathy. The strangeness derived from the unfamiliar — or from the familiar — comes as a question when one first sees my work, but soon a shift of feeling occurs; I pursue a kind of "emotional transference (轉移)." To maximize this intention, I use the image of the face (head). The energy that flows from the face is influenced by the energies present in all directions, and through visual exchange is transmitted back to the viewer. Carving a rubber plate (linoleum block), cutting the plate spontaneously, putting ink on it and printing — the act resembles earlier processes of printmaking, but I work in a form (monotype) that abandons the edition concept of printmaking and takes only a single sheet. Within the larger frame of the face (head), I roll color onto plates (Layers) of various shapes and sizes and print them. Memory and history are mixed of truth and falsehood. Fragments that symbolize memory yield different results depending on how they are arranged. Even when going through the same event, what is remembered differs from person to person, and the parts one wishes to remember begin from a foundation of self-interest or selfishness — and I am expressing this through the work. I want to live with an attitude of recalling true memory and reflecting upon it. When I summon a memory bit by bit, those fragments are rearranged, and that memory calls up another memory. More than the things done well, it is the things done wrong or the painful memories that come to mind. In order to recall, to reflect, and to live well from here on, I make my effort again today.