Zhongyu

Yuan

I look closely at the space between the individual and the surrounding world. I believe that self-consciousness is the key factor separating one's self and others, and is reinforced by the structure of today’s society. In answer to the spectacle of this era overwhelmed by modernization and absurd environment we are facing, I study the limitation of the concept of monument used in contemporary art, address the struggle of identities, conflicting subject-object and the truth of meaningless life. I propose a new form of monument recognizing individuals not as the identity of people, but as wandering isolated multitudes sharing the feeling of “not feeling at home”, endeavor to recover the echo of nature, and survive in this isolated social environment. Regarding human society and civilization as the boundary between individuals and the world, my art practice becomes a method to maintain the fragile connection between people and life. I combine absurdism in existentialism and Oriental philosophy like Zen to find the principle of life that appreciates every fragment of the world without hierarchy. I try to use the idea of living in the world as fluidity without certainty to solve the problematic subject-object conflict. Individuals are shaped by the environment so that the world is a part of us. Art practice makes us become a part of the world as well, which is presented as the trace of multitudes’ interaction with the environment, it’s a trace of memory. Practice of art then becomes the marker of individual’s existence. At the same time through the experience of audiences, it is also the monument of multitudes who share the feeling of being strangers to the world. Art, to me, is the absurd monument for absurd multitudes in the absurd environment.

My practice focuses on shaping the experience for the audience with ambiguity and reconstructing reality through fragments of life. I make multimedia installations with simple colors and a range of scales. These works occupy the space with film-like visual language including light and tone to emphasize the atmosphere of the unfamiliar. Artificial materials are integrated with geometric shapes and grids to complicate original understanding, and create both surreal and uncanny scenes. My installations include multiple parts being unified to shape a series of confusing monuments. I begin my works with concepts, while concentrating more on perceptual experience and treat art as the playground - to escape from daily life for both artists and audiences. I take art as a way to abandon efficiency, bring the dream to reality, and return the artificial world to the aesthetics of nature through making absurd stages and monuments. By simulating the natural landscape, I raise this topic of isolated consciousness wandering in an indifferent world as ephemera.