Yichen Kuo’s Exhibition (in Chinese & English) #畫展
恭喜Amber (Yichen Kuo)順利地展出畫作，及他的《深夜獨白》畫展圓滿落幕！很開心終於看到你努力已久的作品，非常值得欣賞和了解背後的意涵，雖然只有五幅畫，但經你講解後，抽象畫作後面的意義是如此的深刻。因此與畫家本人做了一個小專訪，如以下。(English Version Below)
Q: 我們先讓讀者了解一下每幅畫所代表的含意好了，可以稍微講解一下嗎？
A: 第一幅和第二幅畫（圖一中的左上和右上）中的影像都曾在我夢境中出現過，其中第一幅中是座高塔，曾夢到獨自一人在高塔內的那種孤獨感；第二幅則是一座湖，從棕和綠色所代表的陸地，到中間部分的湖面，以及最後的高山。其中兩幅畫當中的每個方塊都代表了社會綑綁下的規則和期待，例如小時候可能就是考試要考一百分，長大後也不外乎是在哪工作、年收入多少，是否出人頭地了、成家立業了等等讓人喘不過氣的問題。圖裡面的三角形、正方形、圓形則代表者每一個別人為我貼上的不同標籤，方塊上佈滿的細線條到延伸於外的較粗線條，都是每一道束縛的綑綁，以及與我自我的掙扎。外面粗線條所連接起來的形狀也代表著碎片，一種支離破碎的感覺。第一幅塔旁的鏡子，是我希望可用鏡面反射出左上方的太陽，來抓住光芒和希望。黑洞這幅畫，則是把各種不同的標籤和枷鎖都吸進去，其中黑洞左邊這幅（圖一中的左下）看似黑暗，但當中帶了點光明，光亮之處代表著希望，即便在黑暗中還是會有希望出現；右邊這幅（圖一中的右下）則是光明過後黑暗可能隨之到來，一種希望破滅的感覺。利用這兩幅的一體兩面，我希望呈現事情並沒有絕對，並不是非黑即白，以及我們所看到、聽到的或所認知的黑就真的是黑的嗎，反之亦然。
A: 這些畫作的靈感很多是取自於我的夢境，例如我曾夢到過畫中的高塔和湖水，也多想法也是深夜時分有感而發的感受和啟發。
A: 因為我個人是個天文迷，天文學都會用M來命名星星，而後面的52則是我的生日啦。（笑）
A: 其實小時候一直都有在學畫畫，但因升學因素，便放棄了走藝術這條路。出來工作後，工作庸碌和忙碌讓我不禁時常自問這一切到底是為了什麼，一切的意義何在，為何一直在這樣忙於瑣事和惱人的事中循環？我想找尋生活的意義和那種純粹感，於是我便重拾了畫筆。
Q: 知道你是在上一份工作離職之前不久開始進畫室重新作畫的，也就是約莫2016年時，為何目前才想到要展出畫作呢？
A: 其實這次的畫展也是一個因緣際會，剛好畫室的前輩們有在討論可以來聯辦一場畫展，展出畫室藝術家們的作品，於是我便也加入了這次的聯展，一起共襄盛舉。
Q: 你有提到高塔圖〈Reflection: Tower〉中的方塊顏色剛開始畫時是隨機選色，但到後面越畫越有不同的想法，於是作畫期間換了很多次不同方塊的顏色。在油畫中，雖然可以以新顏色蓋掉舊顏色，但這次和下次如想要使用相同顏色時，會不會有調色無法調到與前次一致顏色的問題呢？
A: 調色部分的確是有些人會遇到的難題，不過因為我還算善於調色，所以是可以調出想要使用的顏色，以及維持顏色的一致性。
Congrats to Amber (Yichen Kuo) on successfully holding and wrapping up her exhibition “Nighttime Soliloquies”! I’m very happy & proud to finally see your paintings that you’d been working so hard on for so long! Despite there being only 5 paintings, the meaning behind each abstract painting is heartfelt and profound after you explained about them. Here’s a little interview I did with the artist Yichen Kuo as a result of this.
Q: Let’s give our readers an overview of each painting and their meanings. Can you talk a little bit about them?
A: The first and second paintings (top left and top right in the first picture) both appeared in my dreams. I once dreamed of standing in a high tower all alone, with the feelings of loneliness overwhelming me. The second one features a land (represented in green and brown), a lake and a mountain from outside in. The colorful cubes in these two paintings represent every rule and expectation the society imposes on me, e.g. parents would want you to get 100 in the grade when you were little, and now people are asking where you work, how much you earn, if you’ve made a name for yourself, if you’re married, and other such distressing questions. As for the triangles, square and circles, they stand for the various tags people pin on me. Enmeshed around the cubes are thin wires and thicker threads extending to the edges, which indicate all the shackles binding me and internal struggles with myself. The thicker threads connect one another to form numerous shards that look like broken glass and embody the feelings of being torn apart. The mirror beside the tower is intended to reflect the light from the sunbeams above in the paintings for me to grab hold of the light and hopes. The painting “The Black Hole” is here to suck in all these tags and shackles. The one to the left of it looks dark yet contains traces of light, and light is hope; therefore, there’s hope even in the dark. The one to the right, on the contrary, indicates the dark could come on the heels of light, shattering all hopes. I’d like to convey the idea that there’s no absoluteness in things — it’s not black or white — by juxtaposing these two paintings. With this, I’d like people to think if what we see, hear or understand as black is really black or white is really white.
Q: Why did you name the exhibition “Nighttime Soliloquies”?
A: A lot of the inspiration behind the paintings were derived from my own dreams. For instance, I once dreamed about the high tower and the lake. A lot of thoughts and inspiration also went off in my head like a light bulb in the nighttime.
Q: You named some of your paintings with M52. What does it mean?
A: Oh, because I’m a fan of astronomy, and astronomers normally use M to name the constellations. As for 52, it’s my birthday. [Laughs]
Q: How did you start your journey of painting?
A: I used to learn to paint when I was little, but due to the environment of fierce academic competition, I had to give up on pursuing arts as a career path. After starting to work, all this mundanity and triviality made me constantly ask myself, “Why am I doing this? What’s the meaning behind all this mundanity? Why am I stuck in this rut of busying myself with all these trivialities and nuisances?” I want to find the meaning of life — that pure sense of living a “life.” That’s when I took up my paintbrush again.
Q: I know that you’d started to paint in this studio not long before quitting your last job, which is around 2016. Why did it take you so long to hold an exhibition?
A: Actually this exhibition could materialize all thanks to all the artists in this studio, who were talking about holding a joint exhibition of all the artists’ work in the studio. I then gladly joined in and am proud to share this space with them.
Q: You mentioned that you randomly selected the colors in painting the cubes in “Reflection: Tower” but changed the colors of the cubes many times by repainting them as you went along with different ideas popping in your head. In oil painting, although we can replace the old colors with new ones by painting over them, when we’d like to use the same color as last time, do problems of not being able to blend the colors in consistency between both times occur?
A: Blending colors consistently is surely a problem many people would encounter. That said, I’m rather good at blending colors, so thankfully I can find myself being able to blend the colors the way I want and keep them in line with each other.
