Hungarian State Opera, 2023
For me, Printmaking is a record of the information and energy that I feel in the material world, and in my understanding, not all of these energies are artificially created or altered by the material world.“We are divine but imperfect beings who exist in two worlds, material and spiritual. It is our destiny to shuttle back and forth between these universes through space and time while we learn to master ourselves and acquire knowledge. ”(Newton, 2010) As Dr Michael Newton explains in the book Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives, in this chaotic material world, listening to your heart and finding what you are striving for is what matters.
Based on the autotheory, I start from my own feelings and awareness to capture those existences in the material world that make me feel spiritual, divine, and transcendental, exploring the collision of fluidity and randomness in different printmaking media. Trying to make them a link for me to peek from one world to the other. Just as Siddhartha viewed the river as a gateway to the realisation of Brahman and accompanied it as a boatman, (Hesse et al., 2017) I see the creation of prints as a similar process. The substrate of printmaking is like the intersection of the material world and the spiritual world, In handing uncertainty over to it, I will see more things. If I can summarise with a term that is not based on scientific evidence, I would like it to be a "release the soul" project. Just like the wabi-sabi state of mind which is often communicated through poetry, poetry leads itself to strong, reverberating images that seem “larger” than the small verbal frame that holds them (thus evoking the larger universe). (Koren, 2008)
This painting shows the interior of the Hungarian State Opera, where I was watching a performance of Don Quixote's ballet, and I don't know why this analogy came to my mind: Don Quixote rushes to the windmill again and again in defiance as one looks up to the bright dome again and again in reverence. Perhaps there is faith, hope, something divine and tender and mesmerising there. I have tried to present on the zinc plate the associations I had when I saw Don Quixote's performance, leaving the detailing to the dome in the centre and the huge chandelier hanging vertically below it, blurring out the parts of the painting of the zenith and transforming them into a more abstract, primitive, powerful image that converges towards the centre. Perhaps this also explains why the centre is clear, as it is the place where all eyes converge.
In the choice of materials, I use many media that blend and repel each other, such as using gum priming to bring out the lights and highlights. I tried to put transparent lighter fluid on the plate before adding ink to feel the fusion and confrontation between the fluids. I also tried materials that I had not used before, such as petroleum jelly, whose oily nature made me very careful with the edges, otherwise, it could easily become a "black hole" that eats ink. In the printing step, I chose blue and yellow for chee cline, which was a subconscious choice. When I look back at the work and analyse it, I think it was probably inspired by Giotto's blue of heaven painted in church, and subconsciously I used the blue colour to represent the tenderness of divinity, and the yellow colour to represent the glory of humanity.
सत्त्वसंज्ञा(all living beings), 2023
This creation on film paper is more spontaneous than the previous scene-based creation. It was the beginning of my symmetrical folding work in printmaking, folding in a completely spur-of-the-moment way (I learned about the Rorschach test after finishing the work) as if they were reminding me that this was the way to do it when I touched the paper and used the ink. The process was unplanned, meditative, and the shortest of all the creations, as I needed to fold the film paper while the ink was still wet, and make new flowing overlays based on the new patterns born from each fold.
I chose the least amount of materials and the roughest tools, just like practising yoga, which seems to be free and calm but is really a calibration and balance of body, mind, and image. When I looked back at the work at the end of the day, what came to my mind was the sacred beasts created by the Japanese artist Miwa Komatsu to guard the sanctuary, and I suddenly realised that perhaps in a special state, some connection with the "gods" might be born.
Miwa Komatsu, All May Become Dragons, 2018, Acrylic Paint, 193.9 x 259.1cm
Impressions Series, 2023
This was my first attempt at Lumen Print, a seemingly simple process that produces very different results with time and light. I experimented with natural light and machine exposures of a photocopy of the image and wet leaves, and there were some unexpected results and something that seemed to fail. In the second machine exposure, perhaps due to timing issues, the first exposure only retained a portion of the image that overlapped with the second exposure, which led me to discover a technique similar to "masking". At the same time, the images in natural light had a wonderful hazy effect due to the gap between the photographic paper, which I showed in the Gallery section as scans of the originals, and I didn't want to change the hazy tones because it made me feel calm. Perhaps for my next experiment, I will use a different type of photographic paper and change the exposure time and medium to try a more contrasting effect.
Spirit, 2023-2024
The flow mediums I used in this experiment were sugar, acid, and Colophony (Rosin when in powdered form) which melted slightly under fire baking. This is the first time I have layered more than four techniques in an etching: sugar lift first, aquatint, spit bite, and hardground pattern drawing in progress, and the initial pattern appears unexpected after the layers have been worked and etched. The details under magnification show an etching effect that seems to belong to nature: very raw, natural, like coral, like the surface of a planet. It reminds me of the description of natural substances in WABI-SABI's philosophy of the universe: Truth comes from the observation of nature...All things are impermanent. The inclination toward nothingness is unrelenting and univer. Fit sal. Even things that have all the earmarks of substance-things that are hard, inert, solid-present nothing more than the illusion of permanence. We may wear blinders, use ruses to forget, ignore, or pretend otherwise-but all comes to nothing in the end. Everything wears down. The planets and stars, and even intangible things like reputation, family heritage, historical memory, scientific theorems, mathematical proofs, great art and literature (even in digital form) -all eventually fade into oblivion and nonexistence. (Koren, 2008, p.46-49)
Lacan Series, 2023
This Mono Print series was created during the Pop-up show workshop period (scans are in the Gallery section) and is my second folding practice after the film paper experiment. The mediums are ink, white spirit, and acetate. After learning about the Rorschach test and the symmetrical structures of artists such as Cornelia Parker and Mark Wallinger, my work has become bolder in size, colour, and technique; moving away from the figurative, and giving rise to the idea that "everything can be used for creation".
In this series of practices, white spirit, and folded acetate maximise the combination of fluidity and randomness. Because of the easy-to-use nature of monoprint, these pieces are printed with the strength of my hand, allowing me to control the intensity and direction of the ink. I had planned to stitch the folded acetate originals onto scans of the work enlarged on rice paper, but the tools were already organised at the time. Although I didn't follow through with the original plan, this creation has given me a lot of new ideas and has made me more decisive in my next move.
Other relevant Practice
Untitled-In progress, 2023-2024
This piece is a work in progress at the moment, I used gum for the base, water and white spirit for the water-based and oil-based inks, and experimented with their fluidity on the stone. It may give a feeling of yin and yang, but they do not represent life and death. In my personal conceptual creation there is only "life" and "new life", or the concept of "death" is replaced by another dimension and energy form of "life". It is an existence free of pain, fear, and desire. This is the concept I aspire to express in my creations and the form I will continue to explore in the next unit. This is why I need to continue to experiment with fluidity and randomness to help achieve this peace and tranquillity that cannot be "man-made".