User:Chen Junyu/Graduation Project Seminar/ project proposal/4rd

Introduction

"A painting that is an act is inseparable from the biography of the artist.”(Harold Rosenberg, "The American Action Painters” ,1952)

Chapter I

http://vimeo.com/116489227 Last year I have made a work < How to draw a perfect circle >. This work is consisted by a video depicting the process of drawing circles and the physical drawings. The video starts with 300 animated circles, showing one by one continuely, then there are three screens presented the repeat of the movement of drawing circles. Beside the video, 300 sheets of circle drawings are placed in a transparent box. This work is not literally explaning "how to draw a perfect circle", it trys to express the endless way to the stage of perfect which we all know it is unreacherable. But sometimes the “unreachable” can become the motivation to make us get as much close as we can to being “perfect”.

The story I tell at the beginning of the thesis, has influenced me on a fundamental level. Why do we need to copy others’ work or even the scene already exist there? I instinctively refuse to draw or paint any topics that I have seen before. Since the impression of these images left in my mind, the way how I design a new work is not by choosing elements I am interseted in and compose them, instead, I start a work from “avoid all the similar scenes in my mind”. Even literally I do understand the importance of “copying”, through the action of copying we can really go through the journey which the original author has gone through and benefit from that, I still resist the action of “copying” spiritually. I have lost the inspiration to create my language. At the beginning of making circles or minimal lines I didn’t think about it is physically copying the movement, what I get is the release by empty my mind without the thought of “avoid similar scenes”. Through the minimal lines, I can generate something purely personal and individual, which is the display of my spiritual and physical state. And that is a continuing changing and never repeated process. It is the natural way to draw for me.

Roughly look at the lines, they are similar. There is an interseting tradition in Chinese ink painting, painters usually do not create When I look back this work now, I can see my motivation and inspiration more clearly. That is the process I have been through. The original intention to drawing or painting is the uncarved stone, but through time, for sure, the intention and motivation will be impacted by the outside, either good or bad. What I try to achieve is, by going through strugglling, confusion, hesitation and slackness, chip away the redundant part which added by outside from the stone to finally get back to the condition of “uncarved stone” as origin. What this motivation reflects on practicing, just as what Feng Youlan has summerised: “According to the theory of "having-no-activity, a man should restrict his activities to what is necessary and what is natural. " Necessary means necessary to the achievement of a certain purpose, and never over-doing. "Natural" means following one's Te with no arbitrary effort. In doing this one should take simplicity as the guiding principle of life.”(A Short History of Chinese Philosophy,1948).

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