I started making colored sculptures of scenes in 1998. Although
the encouragement of others was important to me, more importantly
I had found a way to directly express the inner worlds of my emotion.
What I see, I make; what I think of, I make. My hands move in
the clay, turning each piece of clay into a piece of flesh - a
piece of flesh molded within a space I control. This both elates
and indulges me. I don't have more concepts apart from this. Some
images only drift through my mind. I'm in the middle of a sea
of strangers, some of which brush past me, yet have no connection
with me. The crowds flock and gather on the streets, shops, and
theaters, but the people have nothing to do with each other. Mutual
disregard and alienation have become the hallmarks of our age.
Even though our bodies press close together, there are only closed
worlds within our hearts. To me, the outside world is stage after
stage, scene after scene. I hide behind, silently watching. I
use my hands and skills to record each scene and each act of many
human faces.
I've
had the habit of voyeurism since I was young. I started to learn
to draw in my teens. As we lived in a village, every day I had
to take the train into the city to go to school. Hence every day
a large portion of my time was spent on the train, whiling away
hours of mindless boredom to reach my destination. My only pleasure
was in taking in the chaotic masses of people before my eyes.
Here I discovered what those caught up in themselves had no way
of seeing. The third-class carriage was a foul, ugly, unthinkably
cluttered place. I saw whores, thieves, and policemen brandishing
their leather belts¡ This reality was a world apart from that
depicted by the media, on television, and in magazines; perhaps
this was the original face of life. Beauty, elegance, nobility,
and awe - words that we have learnt - did not exist here.
This
life of mine lasted nine years. Luckily, the gods eventually smiled
upon me and enabled me to enter the art academy where I learnt
strict techniques for depicting realism. Yet I was unable to create
works that truly expressed my emotions. While others become very
refined after receiving higher education, I remained vulgar; they
liked to attend concerts, while I enjoyed seeing whores and their
customers and low-life characters. Perhaps this has something
to do with my life on the train. As such, I'm unable to commit
myself to the pure study of sculptural language. Instead, my desire
is to pluck out human nature from the hidden scenes.
Once
I happened to be in the Zero Degree Bar in Lido, where I was deeply
moved by the foul, smoky air and the grinding masses. I was back
in the railway station once more. The only difference was that
that past was an ordeal of necessity, while this was an extravagance
of the current age. As the neon lights flashed, all the dark corners
were lit up, revealing a seamy, fleshy, vulgar world. I deeply
longed to translate what I had seen into a sculpture of the scene.
I don't think too much about the question of a language of sculpture;
my passion is only to depict this atmosphere, to recreate the
scenes I've seen. This work was finished after three months, and
is my first sculptural depiction of a setting. In the process,
it slowly dawned upon me that sculpture must speak truth. The
simple qualities of realism are those which artists should confront
head on. I'm extremely sensitive to the changes in society and
of life. I've made a large quantity of works based on those thoughts
that departed from my original desire to depict ordinary life.
Through dramatic exaggeration and vulgarization, I can reflect
the motives of life. While I agree that "art originates from
life," I'd be suspicious if "art is higher than life."
