On May 14, 2021, 29 Covid confirmed cases were reported. It was also the same day I went north to the gallery to work on the pre-production of my first work for the solo exhibition. A number of 180 confirmed cases were reported the next day, and I returned to Tainan. For the long period after the exhibition had been postponed, I was constantly thinking about my original plan, the exhibition title, and the works that would be made, but I became more and more lost. My connection with those ideas collapsed. They became an object at the end of a broken road, sealed off by caution tape.
I feel that this period of time was a bit like an artist residency. It lasted for three months. I travelled to the ordinary days, settled in a space called home, and finally, there would be a presentation. The experience of this residency is that there was a prevailing sense of estrangement from the outside world, which made you more sensitive to the limited surroundings, and observe the environment more carefully. After all, we are always speculating about something intangible. At night, in the uneventful studio, I wrote down insights and ideas one after another, “Could this become a piece of work by any chance if it develops?"
As a result, I changed the title of the exhibition. Except for one work that had been executed before the Covid outbreak, the other works were completely different.
minus addition
The work with the same title I’d had in mind "minus addition" was a guitar that I smashed in the gallery on May 14. After returning to Tainan, I documented the restoration process. This task had become a rare opportunity for me to go out, and it was probably the only visible progress in this period of repetitive life.
This is a NT$400 clearance item bought at a musical instrument store. After being repeatedly smashed to pieces in the gallery, it was sent for repair and then returned to the gallery for display. This original plan now makes me feel differently. At first, I was more concerned about the things produced during the smashing process. Later I was inevitably more impressed with the days spent repairing it. It took us a long time to reverse that hour in which the guitar was destroyed, "Ah, finally we have come back to pick up where we left off."
Although it is inappropriate to say this, I now feel that this guitar is a bit like a monument to the exhibition that did not happen. Everything looks almost the same before and after this period of time, or at least efforts have been made to preserve the façade, to commemorate something like this.
I really hope that someone will play this guitar on the spot. It is okay to touch this work.
Drawing on the Outlook
The most interesting part of sketching from nature, for me, is that the painter first establishes an interface between himself and the phenomenon before him. Through this interface, the painter has the ability to understand and capture the phenomenon. Perhaps we can even go so far as to say, through this interface, the painter has brief access to the phenomenon, and becomes a scene in the phenomenon, like a tree or a rock, hence the fun of observational sketching. In addition to what has been drawn, we actually have a short encounter with a certain phenomenon through the interface before us. It used to be a certain frame of a scenery out there, and now it has magically appeared on the wall in the exhibition space. Like a prop of Doraemon, it projects the entire scenery outside the face shield that once served as a canvas. The scenery percolates through the atmosphere that enfolds the exhibition space.
Considering sketching as an activity on an interface, the premise of the encounter between the painter and the phenomenon is to isolate each other. This emphasizes the essential opposition between the two. Sketching is based on this opposition, while the two parties involved coexist quietly. Thinking about it this way and looking at people wearing various interfaces in the street, I found it amusing and reasonable. The sketching should take place there. A painter wearing a face shield paints the phenomenon before him on the shield. Such depiction has become an expression of the phenomenon, but also a rejection of the phenomenon.
I remember the time when I was passionate about sketching from nature in college. I could go back and forth to Kenting from Pingtung City in one day, just to draw a bunch of trees or the sea. Later, seeing my drawings on the wall at home would make me really happy. I’m not in love with nature, but I love sketching.
Goodnight, see you later.
I began to write down some ideas after nightfall, wrestling with them, but they were rarely constructive. I often brooded over these ideas until midnight, and ended up returning to the bedroom quietly, for fear I would wake my family, and then gently climbed into bed. Carefully wrapped in a quilt, I closed my eyes but frowned, still troubled by the questions on my desk. The progress of my work was probably slower than the recovery from the pandemic. I tried all kinds of postures, but every move I made was so conscious that I paid more attention to the posture itself, which made it even harder for me to drift off.
Returning to the bedroom too late, I pushed the door open only to find that my family had turned into some kind of sculpture, fast asleep. But I couldn't decide on the final look of my posture, and constantly moved around, which turned the act into a performance piece. Tossing and turning, I would end up exhausted, and finally fall asleep.
“Good night, see you later.”
This is what I say to my kids before they go to bed. Since the kindergarten was closed, life was simply divided in two: When the kids are awake, and when they are asleep. That’s how I realized that I say goodbye to my kids at the entrance of their dream every night, like I’m saying to fellow climbers in the mountain, "You go ahead. I need a moment to catch my breath. I’ll catch up." (panting)
My daily life is disrupted at the moment when my kids go to sleep. Before my life resumes the next morning, I would mull over this exhibition in the studio (the living room actually), and slowly the exhibition took form, then I wrote down these words. Everything happened during the disruption, and has been put on display in the following ordinary days that we have tried so hard to maintain.
