Liu Yung-jen

Artistic creation is much more than something we need in our lives, it is an activity essential to the very essence of life itself. As I think and paint I self-consciously wander between reality and imagination, pacing back and forth in search of answers in a place of complete spiritual freedom. The interlinking of canvas, oils and inner frame creates a living, breathing thing that has to breathe to stay alive. I often start by sketching and playing with visual clues captured in time and space, but when I come face to face with the canvas, it is instinct that motivates inspiration and deconstruction, the inspiration of the moment stimulating a potentially infinite number of variables. An artist’s unique creative style is intimately related to his or her character and background, though the understanding of art history and knowledge of exhibitions are also areas of important consideration. These allow us to identify differences in the image language and developmental change of individual artists; they also ensure that the artist learns from refinements and eliminates ossified artistic language, which in turn ensures he or she avoids unconsciously using staid stereotypes.

Since 1996 my creative work has consciously pursued “the concept of breathing.” At the same time, in order to realize my own artistic ideas I have moved from working with ink to acrylic, oils and more recently beeswax and pieces of lead. Experiments conducted as part of my personal evolution from discourses on series painting to environmental painting have had a particularly lasting impact and of course canvas and oils remain my main expressive medium. People’s feelings are always imbued with a certain degree of spatial expansionism, just as attempting to express a new and profound visual language in painting clearly requires a long period of refinement and challenge. The question remains how to access that space? Doubts and confusion force me to keep searching the infinite beyond. The relationship between people and space, the mutual intertwining of space and environment, from open to compressed semiotic fixed structures, seeks out a balance that is spontaneous and compound. If this cannot be found in the environment of ideas it must be expressed in the act of creation.

The piece “Alchemy 0601” encouraged me to further consider the possibilities of different media. I started painting with liquid beeswax on lead, which when it hardens leaves a solid enclosed visual effect. The way in which the texture of the beeswax transforms from a liquid to a solid allowed me to use it like an oil-based paint. Tipping it onto a lead plate with extendable metallic properties creates a faint texture with clear layers. In addition, when the golden yellow beeswax is poured onto green-gray lead, its movements preserve the state of breathing permanently. It is then covered with an ambiguous semi-transparent substance that makes it stand out even more, creating a visual release that is hard to express in mere words.

Although creative thinking roams the boundless space of the imagination creating something eternal, expressive technique still requires the use of new and interesting media to shape the work. Most importantly, qualitative changes in different materials need to showcase how a consistent idea can be exponentially expanded. When I chose to use beeswax and lead to express the “concept of breathing” I took advantage of a situation that presented itself, because the color and texture of the materials is something that pigments simply cannot replicate. The problem was how to seek a compromise between pigment and canvas and yet still infuse it with the flowing expression of consistent form. I have consistently experimented with this subject and discovered that moment and form are set in stone between the individual breaths of the artist and very difficult to change.

I often consider the contrast and relationship between colors and the structure of my pictures, with particularly focus on the refinement of intermediate colors and changes in softer colors, like the overlapping of sunlight and clouds. I also try to deliberately avoid the slickness of habitual and practiced brushwork in an attempt to offer viewers a counter interpretation. For me painting is a completely open process, wherein creativity exists between reason and perception, in the powerful flowing strokes created between breaths, representing as they do the infinite extension of spirituality.

摘自劉永仁畫冊，2007，南畫廊