text by Kao Tzu-Chin
In the paintings of Dong-Long Wu, we see the pursuit for “duality”, as well as putting the in-depth creative awareness into practice in many ways. On one hand, he restores everything and every existence into a fine piece of a shinny surface, as the yearning for the Formalism of Greenberg. However, the desire of pursuing images with flatness and no depth has diminished the sense of absoluteness due to the self-elements of the paintings. The formulation of pointing to oneself and to one another between the main subjects and the backgrounds (let’s call it this way for the sake of convenience in the discussion in the following) is also an attempt of identifying oneself by the concept of “alternative”.
The images created by using masking tapes, and the evenly and repeatedly painted color tones, are his characteristics of the absolute control to the works. The non-expressive stroke and completely perspicuous after removing all the bulkiness then merge the image with what holds it (the canvas). Moreover, some of the contrasting solo works composed of many small- scaled works have been presented with the preserved color of the linen fabrics, and only through repeated coating and pressing to fill the spaces in the canvas. By doing this, the painting itself gradually loses the inner space, and is no longer an imitated expression of the perspective of a 3D space. Rather, it is an actual object present in the space, or an absolute part in the exterior space. The elevation of original materials that is almost Formalism, and the contention of the ultimate flatness of paintings, was originally used with the intention to avoid the merging of content into form, which was thought to lead to the proclamation that form is meaning. Nonetheless, firstly, with the use of obscuring color tones, as if recollected from old memories, and the texture of canvas as results of thin-layered painting. Secondly, since the images were often captured as the artist’s actual feelings in everyday life, though the intricacy of mathematics is present, it is able to reveal the narrative clues under a circumstance that is unable to be lifelike. Lastly, even though the emptiness surrounds the images places the image through a rootless and baseless means, because the image is presented as a mass-like form, the two parties create an inlaying-effect, which eliminates any sense of floating movement between the main subject and the background. The ultimate taste resulted from the constant battle between the painting features of Dong-Long Wu mentioned above with Formalism has an extra poetic sense, and less the sharpness and smoothness from hard edges.
The organic or the inorganic images presented on the paintings have the characteristic of compromising selection. Some depict the language of visual abstraction, whilst some connote natural phenomena that further lead to descriptive traces. Nonetheless, strong and powerful lines have shaped the absolute outlines of objects with equality, thus the matter has slightly increased the difficulty of recognizing objects. Through these dividing lines that define the main objects and the background, and the models of creation, we understand that the productions of images are not from repeated painting actions. Rather, they are more like simple words such as “I am speaking”. Any actual existence realizes the reciprocity promised by its own disappearances and its future appearance. Therefore, when an artist chooses to conceal certain object (let’s call it A) and does a plain painting, another object (B) would then reveal the emptiness of the concealed space (A) through B’s own construction, so that the nonexistence obtains the being simultaneously.
Hence, for Dong-Long Wu, creative art is no longer incessantly creating images, instead, it is revealing all the overloads in images, and pouring in a transparent power into the inside of images. The transparency would gradually shine on the images until they blossom. Furthermore, a neutral space that does not allow the existence of the substantiality under the unimaginable. |
