My Last Work
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My last work was a portrait, or, as I prefer to call it, a sculpture, of my grandma. I first depicted my grandmother with oil paint, then I attempted to bring myself back to the familiar past through the sweater, the wool, and the shapes constructed by the yarn. I also used traditional and graphic methods to emphasize the contrast between images. But the result was different from what I wanted, so for my current work in progress, I decided to start with what I am currently familiar with: needle, thread,
and wool.
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Wool is an excellent material for me, it just stays there still, and it’s lovely and enjoyable to watch. However, my brain is constantly struggling with colors, and choosing the color of wool is extremely difficult for me. I shouldn’t say that because any art-related material that requires a color choice is a struggle for me. When I imagine how to put those colors into my paintings, it’s like I lost my ability to distinguish and judge.
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I have figured out a way to select colors for the work I’m doing now that doesn’t solve the fundamental problem, but it does diminish the apparent extent of the problem and reduces my color anxiety. Sort the colors according to their brightness and purity, and try to put only a few colors with high levels of purity together. Otherwise, with how tangled I am with color, I am still determining what kind of weird things will be put together. So far, everything is still under my control.
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Besides the color, the material’s texture is what I struggle with the most. Sometimes wool is rough compared to thread, and the surfaces of the materials do not match well together. So the yarn and the thread rarely appear in my projects simultaneously. Since I wanted to incorporate too many elements, I needed more than a flat piece. Balance becomes the most important thing I need to focus on when creating.
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I am more interested in depicting people than landscapes. How to balance the relationship between figure and work; how the figure meets the whole concept of the work; how the narrative of the work is achieved through detailed characterization; how the figure in work connects with the artist and the viewer, I have a heavy curiosity about these mysterious connections that are unseen and untouchable, and this curiosity drives me to keep swimming into the deep sea of this field.
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Swim to the deep sea,
Greedily devouring all,
Become like a whale.
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Grasping recklessly,
To touch the deepest secrets,
With all the effort.
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Endless threads twisting,
It’s not always a guideline,
Look into your heart.