text by Chen Hui-Chiao
A cloud, a sphere, a bird and the sea, encompassing both sound and form…
I am the space where I am.(1)
In “Beyond the Tree”, the artist employs the forms of computer stitching, digital c-prints and spatial installation, presenting simple images such as a cloud, a sphere, a bird and the sea, and conjuring up free and romantic associations with the universe and the stars. The visual images evoked through the combination of “poetry” and “image” are displayed in Gallery 401 and 501 on two floors at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.
“Poetry” represents a poet’s perception of the world and is a special way of narrating reality. “Images” can be a visual experience gained other than through conceptualization, and even a reaffirmation of ideas we already know. Consciousness is itself a form of image experience, a reality in its own right. It is a multi-layered vehicle encompassing the way in which perception, emotion and action relate to time, like the speed of light and matter the existence of which pre-dates language, not just a fable with a hidden meaning or a story unfolding like some literary narrative. The combination of poetry and image is a subjective, spiritual phenomenon, similar to an actual experience within time. It is also the state of being of art itself.
(Statement for the Solo Exhibition at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei
ONE PIECE ROOM｜2012.03.02-04.22)
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In an interview, Chen Hui-Chiao said that “dreams are the starting point of all my work”. Undoubtedly, Chen wants to explore the creative value of subjective ideas by using dreams as a motivation, and create a unique world of her own by combining imagination, creativity and psychological truth. She imagines the world and the universe by going into a sort of meditation. Dreams are her medium for contemplating, reflecting on and questioning the world. They reveal her subconscious and summon her inner soul in search of the state of her existence.
Sigmund Freud believed that to understand someone, you have to understand his dreams first. It is through dreams that people’s real thoughts and true face are revealed. Man always responds to his subconscious through his dreams.
In “Beyond the Tree”, Chen becomes a poet. Poets use imagery to conjure up a world that transcends the appearances and that is divorced from reality. Creating a world that is different from our own, she evokes images of a cloud, a sphere, a bird and the sea, while the illusions of the universe and stars are suggested by simple industrial materials. These images disguise the real world. Rather than being rational representations of the external world, they allow great room for the imagination and visualize the dreams of the author – her private clouds.
However, contradiction and tension are always present in Chen’s work – she uses systematic analysis to convey her sensibility. The installation Beyond the Tree is a concrete example. In the statement “A cloud, a sphere, a bird and the sea, encompassing both sound and form”, every image stems from the author’s imagination. However, they are images familiar to us in everyday life. Here, these images suggest tenderness, silence and vastness. Combining natural and artificial elements, they evoke a sense of space of sky meeting earth. Integrating the private interior and the public exterior, the artist manifests the desire for an aestheticized world and tries to escape into a setting of her choice. (Text by Jo Hsiao 2012.02.27)
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1. I am the space where I am. This sentence appeared was quoted from The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard.
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