"DO I THINK A LOT BEFORE MAKING A WORK?

           My friend once asked me so. And one day I tried to write an answer for this question in my journal. It was an unexpectedly strange answer, as if it was from somebody else. It was weird but true at the same time, as if I got to know me quite better because of that answer.

           Yes, I think a lot, about all kind of things of daily life. Because I often do nothing and it’s hard to just breathe and do nothing. It wears you out very quick. So to keep myself awake, I think of something, not about what my next work would be like. Then one day when I can’t stand any more of thinking, because it doesn’t help at all, I just get up and start to work on something. Those things are often simple and silly. Because I am emptying myself out, you see, I would not want to put any heavy things more onto my shoulders.

           I once said 'I want to live happily like an empty jar' and that’s exactly what I want to do during those times. I work like a machine, with 'precise and perfect' standards, on simple things. The more I could empty my mind, the better I felt. You may not believe it for I often say something deep, some philosophical ideas about my works when I am done with them. But that happens when the work is finished, not before. The work grows itself, you see, and I empty myself out in the mean time. Then when the work is finished, I just became so dumb, so void that anything in front of me could be so meaningful, so powerful.

           I become a zero and suddenly things become interesting. So seeing something beautiful is rather a state of mind than about a real physical existence of beauty."

           (Excerpts from journal, April 27, 2004)

           "I need a game to make this life more exciting. For it seems to me that art is the least boring thing I have ever done (at least it has made me very happy sometimes), why not play a game of being an artist, not a certain artist, but one with big ambition? Little by little, I will fool myself enough to believe that I am doing something big, that I am living my life for something, that I completely forget my doubts and live happily like an empty jar. As long as I am still able to remember that it’s just a game at some certain moments, it is fine. Like when you are having an adventure in a dream, everything is so exciting and so real, but dreamily you still know you are in a dream…"

           (Artist Statement, March 2004)

           "I see artist statements as something momentary, like manifestos needed for certain moments, which are often critical. And as any manifestos of human beings, it is certainly never reaching eternity. But who knows what eternity is, or if it even exists? So why not shout when you still have the energy, why not be stupid when you are still alive?"

           (Artist Statement, March 2004)

           "To: Dr. Dena Eber

           At the beginning of this semester, I am working simultaneously on several different projects. Each of them is about something that has some meaning in itself that inspires me and asks me to search it out, yet may be meaningless by the end, or in general. For this series of works, I try to somewhat constrain myself not to give the works the ambition of appearing as 'professional' works.

           I’d rather have them simple and even ordinary-looking. Yet I am giving careful thoughts for every part of them to make them full in themselves.

           One of the works is about Time, which I almost finish. This one makes me concern about the place to have it displayed. I am working in my studio and intend to make it a small gallery for the series, because of its unique lighting and shadows, different in morning and afternoon, which are factors of the works. Other works are in progress."

           (Study Proposal, Jan 25, 2004, refering to Series In & Out)

           "I tie the two things together: Life and Art. It is absolutely not because I like to do that, it is because of the very need of it. This life is so mysterious and so scary sometimes. But it is also so beautiful sometimes, so beautiful, even when it is sad.

           The Beauty overwhelms me, it bursts me with its power. I have to let that energy out, I have to. I want to raise my leg and kick that beautiful Moon precisely and perfectly. I need to touch it. I want to damage it, I want to cancel it, I want to absorb its beauty. I want to “break” a perfect thing to bring back its potential. I want an almost-perfect thing to become perfect so bad. I thirst for jumping down to that clear cool stream far down below this bridge, and I fly, flyyyy... the cool air touches me, covers me and I laugh with the leaves falling from that big old tree... they are flying with me. All my senses are open to the existence surrounding me. And then I touch that cool clear stream of water, and at that moment I die... I need to find some way to let out the energy that it raises in me, otherwise I will explode. The flow of the energy in and out makes me feel alive, good and happy.

           I have talked about the Beauty, now I talk about the Truth. I believe that truth is not one thing for everybody. Truth is behind the visible things. Truth has many layers that each person can access in different ways. Truth is not what you see with your eyes, but what you see with your mind. I also believe that the very true truth for oneself is what one can see by one’s true self. I am seeking for my own truths. How am I doing it? I don’t know. I don’t have a method to tell you. I just simply do it until I find it. The only thing I could say is that you have to be honest to yourself and work hard."

           (Artist Statement, November 2003)

           "There were times that my inner being refused to talk to me. I kept pushing it, begging it to talk to me but it just shut its mouth tighter. So I had to give up. But there were other times that it suddenly wanted to talk to me so bad. It woke me up, and then started from this to that, to others. It talked to me, cried, and laughed, and talked about all the crazy things in its world.

           So I talked back to it.

           We reminded things, then we discussed,
           and imagined and do all kind of stuff… together.
           We kept talking and talking until I felt overwhelmed
           and I had to push it out,  

           that heavier and heavier thing,
           otherwise I would be exploded…"

           (Essay "The conversations between the inner being and the outer world",
March 16, 2003)

           "So saying that I want to work on the theme 'The Meaning of Living' is not an ambition of mine trying to find a definite answer for that question, for myself or for everybody. Because there is no answer like that. What I want to do is to keep living with myself, talking to myself everyday, to see what myself is thinking, how myself is changing, to find what the “daily meaning of living”, not “the meaning of daily living,” is.

           (Study Proposal, January 27, 2003)

           
              Photo taken in Firenze, 2003

           There is some being inside,
           A monotonous life might it be.
           Time keeps passing by that quiet place,
           Giving it just a very little bit of change,
           Almost nothing.

           But the shadow it left behind,
           Is day by day
           Heavier and heavier,
           Until it can’t stand…

           Is there somewhere in a deep corner of your mind,
           A memory about me?

           From that far distance,
           A remaining unchanged and living self of me
           Was buried in you.

           (Excerpts from journal, February, 2003)

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