Time Crevasse
Acrylic on wood
Double-side painting
2 - 0.6m*1.2m
2021
At the beginning of making the frames, I hit these cracks with a hammer, meaning I couldn't control the shape and size of the cracks as accurately as with mechanical carving. In fact, everything depends on my intuition, with some "accidents". But it is these rough, primitive and inaccurate textures that bring an original "sense of power" to the painting.
The reason I made this piece a “double-sided painting" was also an accident to a certain extent. In the process of painting, I didn't use a brush, but let the acrylic paint flow unconsciously on the wooden surface with gravity, to form some natural textures. In the process of self-conscious flow, some pigment flowed to the back of the board through the cracks, gradually forming the current appearance. I really think the traces formed by these accidents are beautiful, even more than the results made deliberately.
In the past few years, my paintings theme is mostly related to mountains, rivers, earth and seas. I have explored various mediums, materials and methods to express my passion and fear of nature. This kind of fear always dominates me and my creative career, which makes me have a nameless awe of life itself.
When I was deep in the deserted snow mountain or uninhabited primeval forest, I often sneer at my inability and innocence intension of describing the beauty of nature. I have engraved all these feelings in my works which are most 60cm wide and 120cm high, because in my perspective, these rectangular paintings are not only like a door connecting me with nature, rather a mirror reflecting the unique romance and loneliness of artists themselves.
In my native language system (Chinese), there is no clear tense to express the past, the present or the future, so there is a vague immortality in our cultural context. Through the crack in the middle of the painting, the audience can observe the shape of the white pigment over time from the back. I try to express my view of time through this solidified metaphor, namely, eternity.