《2021臺南新藝獎》延續自2013年「臺南新藝獎」開辦以來，以「下一個藝術新星」為發想，透過「藝企媒合」扶持更多的新生代藝術家；本屆以《象形不會意》為策展主題，意味著大自然看似無序雜陳，有如《楞嚴》佛云「若無所明」，人們因而需要憑藉造型（文字）、造象（圖像）、造物（容器）及造聲（樂音），來推敲其巧妙井然。《道德經》說：「大方無隅，大器晚成，大音希聲，大象無形」隱約指出人面對自然是採集有窮時、卻探測無止盡的。藝術家們既從大自然取材，也對大自然盡其探索之欲。
許慎《說文解字序》有云：「象形者，畫成其物，隨體詰詘……會意者，比類合誼，以見指撝」，人們渾然不覺自然之始終，卻憑藉創作者的擬仿來理解它，是藝術的「象形」技法。本次臺南新藝獎以對比方式編組，展現藝術家們對自然及人設環境的造物創形，兩兩因緣聚合、卻不相互干擾，以此則呈現出「不會意」的辯證性，是為展題。
李迪權的版畫印製既是藝術展覽，也是行動。以版畫製作來提醒人們正發生於世界各地、亞洲，特別是近在咫尺的香港，急轉直下的民主運動。藝術家以版畫呈現大量出現在媒體上，香港反送中行動中的各個景象的紀錄，回應木刻版畫在歷史中對革命、社會運動的功能。返回木刻版畫善用於廣傳訊息的特質。動盪感的構圖和刀刻紋理，藝術家重新賦予此媒材政治生命。一部分的板子是從香港街頭現場用於阻擋煙霧彈的木材切割而成的，李迪權也同時利用展出機會，持續募款支援民主運動。一起在木木藝術展出的洪東祿，以易經系列內化他對易經裡蘊含的天理循環和不卑不亢的原則。《山地剝》乍看之下是一個凶卦，被解釋為「東西爛掉而剝落」，但洪東祿卻取果實落地腐爛之後，種籽才能顯現而展開下一輪生命之意。藝術家取剝字的刀邊，有如抄經者般一筆一刀的寫，同時有切斷自己的過往，等待再生的涵義。《艮為山》是取其字的意形，艮為山，也是門。作品以礦物色粉岩黑打底後，填滿艮卦六爻的符號。黑色代表黑碧璽的顏色，也做為門的象徵，而藏青色則如一座山或一個無人的庭院，暗示了人們的舉措進退都有兩個方向的選擇，也各自再導向兩個方向的發展。黑代表負面能量，藏青色則代表創傷的修復，兩者的組合表達出易經裡福禍相伴的宇宙觀。世事政局的瞬間翻轉，和易經諭示的悲喜吉凶的相依相成，以兩位藝術家一動一靜的作品，做為我們共同對時代祈安的許願。
李欣芫的作品是視覺化聲音，或是聲響化記憶。以這個方式讓看不見的或有意遺忘的歷史有機會被重新感受。這個創作路徑是從藝術家回應不同空間開發出來的獨特語彙，她走訪臺南新營的民治議事廳（市議會）、遭到白色恐怖迫害的新營糖廠員工互助組織「碗公」的史料等，透過聲音轉譯不同的失聲、無聲狀態。在醉美空間中，李欣芫的作品《奇蹟—經濟、物理、生物指標》藉由展示水質淨化的科技，記錄這個科技所需的測試小魚的聲音，將五樓的空間轉化成大水族箱，觀眾成為小魚，和展場上水族箱中的小魚圍成雙層意象。作品藉聲音傳達我們毫無所知的，那些達成高品質生活的科技所消耗掉的生命。藉由聆聽藝術家的表演，觀眾能感受她嘗試平衡人類的巨大操控和實驗室裡的極小生命。一樣在可見與不可見之間打開感受性的縫隙，美籍藝術家龍凱特(Kate Strachan)對於媒材的運用，在於翻轉瓷土或臘等穩固的物質性，將它們形塑為即將碎掉、消失或散落、趨向非物質性的臨界狀態。在這些視覺上脆弱不已的作品中，幽微地刻印著如箴言的字句和符號，這是出身德裔賓夕法尼亞路德教派(Pennsylvania Dutch Lutheran Christian)家庭，繼承了反圖像文化的藝術家，對於非視覺文化的回應。她象徵著純潔的白色作品像是「負向的祭壇」或 「負向的相簿」，將她對可辨識物的渴望和對模仿物的排斥之矛盾，巧妙地並呈。兩位藝術家同時利用不可見(invisibility)，改變人們對於世俗之物和尋常尺寸的感受方式，讓觀眾穿梭於展覽空間彷彿愛麗絲夢遊的仙境。
呂如笙和張秉正兩位藝術家都是從紮實的繪畫技巧出發，以及低度喧譁的方式，將個體與大環境、社會的觀察和連結呈現出來。呂如笙的作品是鏡像反射、倒影和建築結構的結晶化，被多重意義所切割、介入和反照，以鏡面自拍重組面貌模糊的自我。呂如笙的作品再現了都會佈滿人們足跡路徑的公共區域、光亮的櫥窗反射著快速流動的城市節奏和來不及辨識的面孔，每個人事物都是匿名者。此方的不具名映照著彼端的無名，鏡面既是城市的表象，也是個人與無數他者的不斷正反交錯的陌生之境。一起展出的是經歷戒嚴到解嚴及民主化世代的張秉正，藝術家利用精湛的水墨技法，回探這個文化傳承的歷史脈絡。藉著自在行筆，重塑檔案和新聞照片的歷史，並以富含文化和政治背景的水墨之媒介和素材，結合過去世代熟悉的、無處不在的統治和規訓的符號。張秉正重現民主化前，街景、市容、媒體報導和政治宣傳組合出來的視覺文化。作品如《守靈》、《父與子》是藝術家以極不符合繪畫的構圖原理的截圖方式，比擬自身和整個跨海來臺的世代，在生命史和文化傳承上的斷落。呂如笙的個體是層層覆蓋的，而在張秉正的作品中市井百姓是被動的，兩位藝術家皆從主體缺席出發，呈現了兩個世代與周遭環境不同的進退方式。
一張放大的廉價金戒指攤販的照片，暗示這是當今移民潮裡不同形式的「掏金熱」。太認真（佘文瑛& 郭柏俞）的 《Newww.Land.com》從存在於紐西蘭博物館的資料裡找到的化石、動植物的採集登錄等資料，以隻字片語來勾勒華人移民的意義。移民做為人類軌跡，可能出自災難、經濟誘因、生物趨吉避凶的潛能，或是更高品質的安居渴望等，這些複雜性都在《Newww.Land.com》中被關照到。因為資源競爭而消失的物種、隨著遷移者而飄來的植物，為消解鄉愁而攜帶的食材、藥草、茶飲，形成新居地的生態痕跡，它們乘載著新到者與接收社會之間的不均、融合或衝突。太認真裝設出移民服務的生意，提供有如進入購物場的觀展方式，但觀眾打包進提袋裡的，是厚重的移民史。同在加力畫廊展出的楊茂林「金烏、雲豹、百合花」系列作品，一樣是以自然、植物、動物的媒質和題材，交織著人為世界對它們的消耗和敬拜，也同時藉由對生態從仰賴到索取、乃至版圖和國族符號建置，再現人類對於自然，既是自身及族群安置的慾望，也是宣告所有權及家國從屬的行動。象徵之外，這些畫在木材上的作品也是藝術家回歸自然物質界的宣告。同時，金烏既代表太陽、也代表烏鴉，而烏鴉在落日之際色澤更為豐富多采，也是藝術家自我生命的映照。兩組藝術家以不同方式敘說土地依戀、物種交錯和個人與環境的往來依據，卻奇妙地共同串出了展場的視覺連貫感。
梁廷毓的創作從口述傳奇、民間流言和耆老記憶出發，追溯他的家鄉區域，因地理形式和多族群交會，發生過的殺戮歷史。藝術家透過各種問事途徑，卜卦、靈媒、乩問等方式搜尋亡靈和殘骸，探詢不曾被紀載的廢遺之地和不全之葬。這些非學科的方法，搭配轉換掉的影像色調，是藝術家以犯罪現場鑑定(forensic)的模式詮釋歷史的策略，而打開了多重敘事並置的記史技術之可能性。同時，從宗教信仰和民俗中敬天畏地的角度，梁廷毓呈現了人們如何對土地投射潔淨與汙穢；歷史的裡的爭奪如何被轉譯為恩報和罪贖。同在水色藝術工坊展出，華安瑞的攝影作品則是關乎環境的純粹性。人跡迴避的靜謐，有如詩句般叢莖蕊萼的綻放與墜落，藝術家在修圖的過程中和鏡頭下的景象緩慢周旋，不是藉著軟體呈現大自然的壯闊，而是追求處於斯的片刻記錄和內化於心的均衡。以比一般展場偏暗的光線安置作品，華安瑞希望觀眾的視覺感性逐漸開展，直觀地進入作品裡的雨霧、水露、餘暉和殘像，感覺自然界裡最輕微的顫動，在此瞬間和它一起凝結。在梁廷毓牽引著藏匿在地形裡的躁動不安的作品後，觀眾可以藉著華安瑞作品毫無偏袒的自然凝視，還歸自我。
張皓甯的作品探討了實質物體和數位時空的差異。以計算和分析的角度勾畫物體的動態和輪廓，讓它任意在影像架構出來的時空中飄移，彷彿脫離地球、失去座標的 飄盪。這些隨機選擇的物件從腐敗和廢棄的物質世界脫身，而有了自己的數位生命旅程。在藉由影像對物質的拆解之外，作品《SpaceX》是藝術家對照特斯拉(Tesla)發送衛星的新聞影像，以拾得物件改造的太空遺跡。這個既未來又考古的裝置，播放著在外太空飄盪時紀錄下的時空光景，是張皓甯試探人們記憶和感受範疇，是否還是太空及數位科技 憑藉的尺度。和張皓甯相對照的，是鄧堯鴻以人造材質對大自然遺落物的剪影。從類自然物造型出發，卻改變了尋常尺寸的聯想，是藝術家雙向的提問，生態一方面是人們所瞻仰的對象，另一方面又總是被其他物質文明所取代掉。藝術家創造出顯示剝落過程的種子、莢殼、竹節、蟬翼或蛾羽，或猶如水上偶遇而彼此相依漂流的自然殘跡，展露出我們所處世界的物質有限性，也同時在暗示大自然生態規律裡，生死相依的美學。兩位不同世代、不同媒材的藝術家同時以不同形式，各自勾勒時空和記憶輪廓的語彙，一起呈現他們的動態考古美學。
在絕對空間展出的陳恩澤的音像藝術《沉著未盡的波形》和《造雲》，分別將科技藝術的實體和虛擬性一同呈現。前者是藝術家以持續、循環、重複的機械律動和隨機計算的聲響共構出來的裝置，陳恩澤提到觀眾從凝視、疲倦到沉靜下來的過程，便是他所言的沉著而未盡的美學。後者是藝術家以「人造雲」為主題，以分析和還原做為影像製作的結構，呈現了音像的動態，也將資料庫雲端的雲的概念和自然界的不斷收斂發散、聚合湧動的雲的形象合一，產生了有未來性想像的工具性懷舊方式。陳恩澤的作品空間將觀眾包覆在作品的時間和空間之中，形成了內翻的雕塑性，和陳曉朋的作品《當代雕塑五四三》和《當代雕塑二十招》則是尚未離開包裝材的雕塑品，似乎也暗示著還離不開雕塑藝術史的狀態。這兩個系列是藝術家對藝術史裡雕塑、裝置、現成物(ready-made)、仿擬(mimic)或諧擬(parody)等不斷擴充藝術定義的新概念之回應。因此《三美圖》這件作品以書和圖的形式並陳在空間中，既是物件本身的展示、有藝術史的指示和比喻，又自己是導讀資訊，而形成雕塑史的外翻－論述變成作品、作品成為論述。
葉仁焜的作品常是介於風景、文人和卡漫之間的自然描述，既有西方風景畫的構圖，也有東方林園造景的聯想。作品裡有不同於文人山水情懷的人物，他們不是優游於自然，而是自然與奇觀的挑戰者，有對人們之於生態各種幻覺的嘲諷意味。在大新美術館的展出作品，一部分是葉仁焜和作家鄧九雲的合作，產出既親暱又疏離的各種相處情境的聯想。他們分別從圖像和文字的路徑創作，並以報章書籍絞碎後重製紙張來印刷文字，讓文字和圖像的歧路相互穿越，重塑了「書畫同源」的概念。和葉仁焜一樣都是自然與人跡的辯證，蔡芷芬以多種媒材翻轉風景題材的傳統。藝術家創作生涯的各系列，皆是在反思人們如何憑藉、依賴和模仿自然界的情境，試圖和環境取得合作的關係。《黑暗冬季》、《微漾》和《流光系列》靈感來自在冬季的芬蘭駐村的自然體驗，再現了當溫度和日照都極不足的條件下，人們藉由想像和技術，模仿或延長生態的能量而形成的美學。兩位藝術家皆呈現人類入住的世界裡，對河泊、林樹、星夜的仿擬，突顯人們面對自然彼此照射的情懷，和被自然無條件容納的渴望。
廖昭豪的作品在索卡藝術中心展覽空間中呈現介入而改變自然的人為工程和技術，巧妙地利用畫廊內部空間和外臨河道的位置關係，以一道擋土坡提供觀賞藝術的訪客特殊視角和身體感。展場懸掛的浮球上，則展現著藝術家對日以繼夜的潮差痕跡之寫意圖，是他對改造環境、規範行為的工程之美學詮釋，也同時探索了藝術史不斷探索、持續超越的仿擬性(mimic)。廖昭豪的藝術開啟了對稀有性和日常物件的對照，和同展場上葉怡利有不同路徑卻朝向相似的辯證性。從錄像作品到陶瓷雕塑的創作，葉怡利有一貫的對環境變遷、自然採擷、資源取用、人造物質和消費習性等議題之關照。她的藝術是對瀕臨危機的生態之喻示，因此也以局部的現成物、工業和商品來組合作品。藝術家的新作《南島景象》是人類跟其他物種關係的縮影，既依賴又寵愛，卻也盡力使喚著牠們。而錄像作品《洛斯特－海》(Lost - Sea) 和《洛斯特－蕉》(Lost - Banana) 以神話方式表達人類與環境的關係，如何從讚嘆奇蹟到過度取用後而造成失落。除了以詼諧的方式描述物種面臨的危機外，葉怡利也反思人造生態裡交錯的生產鏈和商品美學的議題。
葉治伸的作品將顏料、媒材、創作過程合一，從建築放樣所用墨斗彈線發展出他獨特線條藝術創作，他稱自己的作品是「編織時間的線」，讓二度空間的藝術裡納入時間的因素。而記錄著手工和體力的作品，佈滿線條的畫布，也同時是葉治伸對數位時代的回應。儘管都是色彩線條，但顏色的組合是來自馬來西亞的葉治伸對於文化差異的觀察和感受，包括不同階級著裝的色系符號等，而有《文化之間》和《娘惹系列》作品的並呈。符號性之外，藝術家憑藉的墨斗技術，是技與藝、身體和時間的琢磨，對工具性的敬重和持續性，猶如儀式的創作過程，帶著觀眾回返藝術的起源。也把時間因素和歲月納入創作的，是一同展出的簡永彬，他近期作品以藍晒和膠彩油印等方式，強化攝影裡時間性的呈現。藝術家選出過去數十年攝影生涯中的底片，重新以顯影、複製、加工、上色。在數位和智慧手機隨手拍攝、任意上傳的時代，簡永彬讓暗室成為明室，把按快門的霎那間變成緩慢的回顧過去，和為記憶補色的過程，成了生命軌跡的再詮釋，而同時讓攝影有了繪畫性。兩位藝術家在高科技的影像時代中尋求身體的介質和回歸，更純粹的找出時間的疊影，映照了大象無形卻有時序的精神。
A Double of Nature Curator: Wu Chieh Hsiang
The “2021 Next Art Tainan” exhibit “A Double of Nature” indicated an encounter of an imagined and invisible nature. As mentioned in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, “nature appears to be incomprehensible,” thus, people need to scrutinize its order through the creation of shapes (characters), the creation of forms (images), the creation of objects (vessels), and the creation of sounds (music). The Tao-Te-Ching shares the concept by mentioning that “the largest space has no corners, the greatest vessel takes the longest time to create, great music has rare notes, and the great form is without shape” implying that there is a limitation for humans to gather ideas from nature, yet no limit for discovery. Artists collect ideas from nature, exhausting nature as well as taking resources from it.
Xu Shen mentioned in the preface of Shuowen Jiezi that “the pictogram is derived from the shape of the object, the meaning could be seen from it… the compound ideogram is to combine two words together to form a new word and a new meaning.” It is rare that people understand the concept of nature, or how it is formed. Therefore, they often rely on the mimicry of artists to get a picture of it, an art technique we call “pictograms” when characters were first created. The 2021 Next Art Tainan exhibition was designed by arranging ten pairs of artists of different media and different generations to exhibit in ten galleries. They were inspired by each other’s understanding of nature as well as the interpretation of the surrounding artificial environment. The artworks were gathered together seemingly by chance, yet their contrast is found within the harmony and their concordance is found within their distinctions. The concept presents the dialectic of the “Double Nature,” and was therefore chosen as the theme of the exhibition.
The printing of Lee Tek Khean ’s woodcuts is not merely an art, but was also an action. He uses woodcutting to remind people of emerging democratic movements throughout the world, in Asia, and especially in Hong Kong. The artist uses woodcuts to present the records of what happened during Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, which was heavily reported in the news. The exhibits are at the same time Lee’s responses towards the function of woodcutting as they pertain to revolutions and social movements in history, while reflecting the quality of spreading the news through woodcuts. With trembling composition and the wild trace of knife cuts, the artist redelivered a political life to this medium. Some of the pieces of wood were retrieved from the scene in Hong Kong, where the protesters used the pieces to block smoke grenades lobbed by police. Lee also used the opportunity of exhibition to fundraise for democratic movements. Exhibited alongside Lee at the Mumu Gallery, Hung Tung Lu combined his understanding of the I-Ching’s life cycling and its principle of “neither humble nor arrogant” into his artwork series on the I Ching. “Fallen Mountain-Earth Hexagram” seems like a bad hexagram at first sight, and its meaning is often explained as “things have become rotten and fallen off.” For Hung, however, it means that only after the fruit has rotted and fallen to the ground would the seed then be able to grow and start a whole new life of its own. The word “Fallen” in Chinese is written as 剝 with two vertical lines on the right representing a “knife.” It is regarded by the artist who is copying from the I-Ching to spread its words stroke by stroke, knife cut by knife cut, implying the cutting out of his own past and waiting for the rebirth of the artist himself. The piece, “Port As Mountains” was named after its Chinese characters, “艮為山”, the word “艮” could be regarded as a mountain, but as well as a doorway or portal. The artwork was filled with hexagrams. The tourmaline-like black background represents doors, and the navy blue resembles a mountain symbolizing a garden without a person. The hexagram combination in these two colours shows the two options of human behaviour – to do something or to leave it be, which led to the development of two further options. Black represents negative energy, and navy blue represents the healing and recovery of wounds. The combination of both colors shows the universal point of view in the I-Ching that good and bad, sadness and happiness are forever operating in a cycle. With the restlessness of the world represented by Lee Tek Khean’s artwork and the symbolisation of gradual recovery through Hung’s works, the exhibition could be regarded as our wish for world peace in current times.
The artists Lu Lu Sheng and Chang Ping Cheng , both starting from their solid painting skills, each showed the connection between individuals and the environment, as well as their observation of society in a low-key manner. Lu's art consists of crystallised architecture and inverted and reflected figures on the surfaces of her paintings which, through slices in multiple layers of meaning, intervene and reflect the self-awareness of the multilayered muttledness of the self. Lu Lu Sheng presents public areas in the city filled with people, whose busy tempo is reflected on the glass windows, and whose faces have disappeared too quickly to be recognized. The artist recognises herself only through the images of an anonymous metropolitan, a place filled with meeting and passing amongst innumerable strangers. Exhibited alongside Lu Lu Sheng is an artist who experienced the Martial Law period in Taiwan and witnessed the development of Taiwan’s democracy, Chang Ping Cheng . The artist uses his extraordinary skills with ink painting to explore the historic thread of passing down cultural inheritance. Chang uses the images of historical materials and news photos to recreate the figures of lionized rulers through ink painting, which in itself is an art form rich in cultural and political connotations. Chang also represents the views of a city filled with political propaganda reminiscent of the pre-democracy era in Taiwan through ink painting. “The Wake” and “Father and Son” were created with disturbing compositions, demonstrating the cultural gap between the artist himself and his father’s generation of Chinese immigrants. These works are the artist’s way of reminding the viewer of the discontinuity of his and many families’ histories and the interrupted cultural legacy between China and Taiwan. The individuality of Lu Lu Sheng ’s art was hidden in mass, and the citizens in Chang Ping Cheng ’s art suppressed; both artists started from the absence of subjectivity, yet demonstrated very different personal relationships to their social and political surroundings.
The art of Lee Cia Hsinyuan was centered on the visualisation of sounds or acoustic memories. Her art often deals with spatial memories by once more making previously invisible and intentionally abandoned histories audible. For example, she visited the Tainan City Council in Xinying, where she recited the historical materials from the mutual aid organisation of the Sugar Refinery in Xinying’s “Bowl (碗公 Wangong)” during Taiwan’s White Terror period to give a voice to the silence of the era. At Aglow Art Space, Cia’s “Miracle – Economy, Physics, Biological Index” demonstrates the high-tech setting of purifying water through the amplification of sounds made by test fish from a laboratory. The artist transforms the gallery space into an image of a giant aquarium and turns the audience into fish. An imagery of double layers of lives becomes obvious at the exhibition space and the beholders become aware of the smaller fish which were raised for experiments. Through observing the artist’s performance, the audience could feel the artist’s motive was in trying to balance man’s massive intervention in nature through the usage of high-tech and the neglect of tiny lives in a laboratory. Lee Cia Hsinyuan’s performance opened up the sensual cracks between the visible and the invisible, corresponding to American artist Kate Strachan's project, which reshapes objects on the verge of shattering, melting or disappearing with the supplementation of solid materials such as clay or wax, approaching a critical juncture between materiality and immateriality. On the surface of these apparently fragile artworks are obscurely engraved motto-like words and symbols. They are the artist’s response to the iconoclastic culture she inherited from her Lutheran family growing up in Pennsylvania. Her pure-white artworks resemble a “negative altar” or a “negative album” expressing the ambivalence between her desire for recognizable objects and her repel towards imitations. Both artists have successfully reconceptualized ideas regarding invisibility, and changed people’s perception of commonplace objects by altering their dimensions. To add on to this perception, under the charms of the At Aglow Art Space, the audience feels like they’re wandering through Alice's Wonderland.
A zoomed-in picture of a vendor of cheap gold rings which was especially favored by immigrants in New Zealand implies a variant form of “gold-digging” in the current trend of immigration. The installation, “Newww.Land.com”, is a survey of Chinese immigration by the artist team Working Hard (She Wen Ying and Kuo Po Yu) depicted through the fossils and the records of animals and plants found in New Zealand’s museums. The installation, consisting of several parts, at some points resembles commodities while at others, resembles monuments. The installation is the artists’ exploration of how landscapes and ecology are changed by routes of migration. Motives for migration varied from time to time. They could be the result of catastrophes that occurred in homelands, social and economic reasons, or the pursuit of a better life. These are all observed in “Newww.Land.com”. The art installation by Working Hard indicated that endemic species disappeared due to resource competition with plants that were sailed across the ocean - the foods, herbs, and teas brought by immigrants - had all left traces on the environment of the new lands. The title of the art project “Newww.Land.com” evokes a promise of fortune and happiness, however, it reveals that the history of migration has been loaded with inequality and conflicts between newcomers and receiving societies. Working Hard exhibits the artwork as if it were an immigration service business, getting visitors to view the exhibition room as if they were in a shopping centre with shopping bags, whereas, the items they collected in their bags represent the weighty history of immigration. Exhibited alongside at InART Space is the artwork series “Three Legged-Crow, Clouded Leopard, Lily” by Yang Mao Lin. The series is inspired by nature, plants and animals in Taiwan. Yang’s topics deal with the consumption and worship of the human world and its impact on nature, representing man’s ambivalent desires to be settled down within nature as an individual yet at the same time also be a ruler of said nature. Yang’s artworks expose the disparity between the reliance of humans on nature on the one hand, and the claim to ownership of nature on the other. Aside from the critical viewpoints, the artworks created on wood are also an announcement of the artist's coming back to nature. The statue of a golden-black crow which represents the sun, and the feathers of crows shining with a greater array of color at sunset, could be regarded as a self-portrait of the artist. The artists in InART Space told stories of migrant land-attachment, the encounters of people with the environment, as well as the crossings of species for different reasons. The two exhibitions at InArt Space were created using various materials, whereas they come together to form a visual and narrative continuity in the exhibition space.
Liang Ting Yu’s art began from his collection of oral histories, folklore and the memories of community elders, and the tracking down of the history of local conflicts caused by the convergences of different ethnic communities in his hometown area. The artist traced the historical facts in abandoned places and the remains of incomplete burials through various means, such as divination, communing through psychic mediums or shamans, to verify the hearsay and to search for unsettled spirits. The non-scientific images using amended colours that resemble forensic images, are the artist’s strategy for interpreting the undocumented past. Liang reflects on how humans have purified or cursed landscapes through both worshipping or making them taboo, as well as how the scrambling of nature was interpreted as either a deservedness or penalty for people. Also exhibited at the Mizuiro Workshop, Andreas Walther's photography regards the purity of the environment. In the absence of human trace, the tranquility witnesses the thriving, withering and falling of plants like a poem with lyrics of stems, leaves, and flower petals. Deliberately negotiating with the editing of images caught by his camera lens, the artist doesn't attempt to represent the grandeur of nature with software, but to pursue an internalized balance at the moment of recording. Presenting his photos in a dimly lit gallery, Andreas Walther hopes the audience would expand their senses gradually so as to enter into the scenes of rain, mist, dew, and sun glows in the imaginary remnants of his photography, and feel the most subtle trembles in nature, freeze-framing themselves into the flashy moments. After experiencing the restlessness hidden in the landscapes created by Liang Ting Yu, the audience could regain themselves through Andreas Walther's unbiased glimpses of nature.
Chang Hao Ning ’s art explores the discontinuity between physical and digital space. The artist configures the outlines and movements of the objects through data calculation, making the objects float randomly within a space created through digital images. The arbitrarily selected objects in “Delocalisation” seem to free themselves from the deteriorated material world and restart their own life with a digital journey. Aside from the disassembled objects, “SpaceX” shows space relics created with collected objects based on the images of Tesla’s space project. Simulating a satellite device with a found object equipped with a screen, the art piece displaying the images captured whilst floating in space demonstrates both the futuristic and ancient qualities of Chang’s art. The exhibition is Chang’s experiment on human memory and sensibility by presenting discarded objects in an unknown scale of digital space. Resonating with Chang’s work are the silhouettes of natural objects made with synthetic materials by Deng Yau Horng. The artist creates objects to represent the withering process of nature, such as broken seeds, shells, sticks and tattered cicada or moth wings. Some of the pieces look like the natural remnants one might come across whilst the objects are flowing along a creek, finding each other accidentally and complementing each other in their form. Although representing nature poetically in an unusual dimension of most familiar objects, the artist questions why, from one side, man adores nature, and on the other, replaces nature through man-made materials as an achievement of civilisation. Deng implies that the world of materiality is limited, indicating that beauty is always accompanied with death in the regular cycle in nature. The two artists from different generations question how humans preserve their memories, concluding their answers from the perspective of digitality and materiality separately, whereas their different aesthetic of “archaeology in motion” appears in harmony with each other.
Chen En Tse’s audio-visual artwork “Steady and Unfinished Waves” and “Creating Clouds” exhibited at Absolute Space for the Arts simultaneously presented the physical and virtual qualities of technological art. “Steady and Unfinished Waves” is an installation with mechanical rhythm, cycling elegantly and accompanied by random sounds. Chen explains the process of viewing the artwork: the beholder would first glance at it still, then becoming tired, would calm down and feel gradually immersed in the exhibition room. It is the aesthetic of “steady and unfinished being” that the artist develops to affect the audience. “Creating Clouds” is inspired by the “cloud” as derived from the concept in database storage. The images are constructed by constant calculations of data and represented in movement. The digital clouds, projected on the walls of the gallery, are vivifying and declining, expanding and shrinking like clouds in nature. The fluctuating form of the clouds is a doubling of nature in a futuristic way. “Creating Clouds” surrounds the audience and gives them the content of a kinetic sculpture. Next to Chen En Tse’s room, Chen Shiau Peng’s art series “Contemporary Sculpture 543”, the “Contemporary Sculpture 20 Steps” and “The Three Graces” takes the form of art history guidebooks to present the artist’s contemplation about the definition of sculpture. The objects, exhibited in cartons, appear to yet be unpacked, implying an interim state between ordinary objects and artworks. The artworks are the artist’s reaction to the continuously expanding definition of art through the inclusion of installation, ready-made, mimic and parodic works into the category of art. “The Three Graces” consists of two piles of guidebooks and a seminar plan for an art faculty, turning the exhibited objects into the guide for both themselves and the artwork itself. To insinuate that the definition of art could be expanded by piling up guidebooks and a syllabus, is Chen Shiau Peng's humorous response to academically-tinged art history.
Yeh Jen Kun ’s artworks are often scenes of mixed themes. They have a composition consisting of Western landscape paintings, while at the same time evoking the association of Eastern gardening art. On each of Yeh’s paintings are human figures resembling those found in literati paintings of ages past, however, they are not enjoying nature, but rather challenging it. The motifs implicate the artist’s comment that humans admire nature often by conquering it. At Da Xin Art Museum, a part of the artworks exhibited is the outcome of the collaboration between Yeh and writer Joanne Deng. They use shredded books and newspapers to fabricate paper for printing Deng’s writings as the annexes to Yeh’s paintings. In this way of cooperation, Yeh and Deng backtracked the concept “Words - Painting Within One” of literati paintings of old, while the sometimes resonant and sometimes discordant coexistence of the two parts appear like a maze of the mind. Representing the same dialectics of natural beings and human doings as Yeh has shown, Tsai Chih Fen revivified the traditional landscape aesthetic through the innovative use of multimedia. The series that the artist has long created has always been her reflection on how people have tried to collaborate with nature by imitating, appropriating or transforming it. “Dark Winter”, “Tiny Ripple” and “Flowing Lights” are inspired by the natural experiences Tsai had during her residency in a village in Finland, where she recorded the scarce dynamic of the winterly nature Finnish people depend upon. Surrounded by the overwhelming frostiness, Finnish people use their imaginations to not only develop necessary skills, but also distinctive myths to comfort people’s souls during a season of severe cold and insufficient daylight. With the installation of lit-up house models, Tsai intricately transformed this Finnish legacy into modern art through various forms of adoration of nature. Both artists represent the human desire to preserve nature through the reproduction of images from nature, such as rivers, mountains, forests and starry scenes for use in living spaces, reflecting the ambitions of humans to interact with nature and at the same time the eternal wish to be embraced unconditionally by it.
Liao Chao Hao ’s artworks exhibited at Soka Art represented the engineering and techniques that continuously alter nature. In order to provide the audience with a special visual and physical experience, Liao installed a gigantic retaining wall close to the show window of the gallery to allow passage. In this way, the artist masterfully utilized the location conditions between the interior space of the gallery and the river course outside the gallery. Next to the retaining wall, constructed from papier-mâché, there are buoy balls of the same material hanging within the gallery, painted with wavy colours representing the artist’s observations on the fluctuation of tides. The buoy balls are a continuing concept of Liao’s former creation on wave breakers, which blocked the exhibition space as a reminder of a nature heavily impacted and changed by humans. The artist’s aesthetic strategy is to reflect the disruption of nature through engineering by creating scenes of the controversial juxtaposition of objects from the manmade world and from nature. The art series of camouflage is also Liao’s response to the continuing dialectic in art history between mimicking and outmatching reality. Meanwhile, Yeh Yi Li has a different way of expression, yet has the same concerns about changed natural environments. Yeh exhibited at the same venue. Skillful in handling various materials of her art, such as video and ceramics, Yeh paid a lot of attention to environmental topics, for example, on the ceaseless exploitation of natural resources and mans' unsustainable habits of consumption. Yeh created her artworks with a part consisting of ready-made and industrial products to indicate an endangered ecology threatened by overproduction of artificial materials. At the venue, “South lsland Scenery & Elephant” is a miniature representing the relation between human and other species - on the one hand adoring and relying on them, and on the other hand commanding and enslaving them. Her video pieces “Lost – Sea” and “Lost – Banana” conveyed the relation between man and the environment via way of myths, parodying a narrative to show how humans praise nature as a miracle by exhausting it that eventually ends in disappointment. Aside from envisioning the crisis that our species (and others) are facing in an ironic way, Yeh’s art also peers into man's inclination towards imitating nature and reflecting it in behaviors of consuming goods, as well as the artificial ecosystem humans have created.
Yap Chee Keng conceptualized pigments and tools as a process of art creation itself. The artist developed his unique linear art creations from the chalk lines used in architecture setting outs and called his artworks “weaving time with lines”, implying adding time as a third dimension into two-dimensional paintings. The colours on the canvas, resembling digital images but records of the handcraft and endurance of the creator, are Yap’s response to people’s perception of time in the digital era. Although the artworks are composed of coloured lines, the colour combination is in accordance with the cultural variety Yap observed in his homeland of Malaysia. “Between Cultures” and the “Nyonya Series” represent colours symbolising social class in Malaysia, with the cultural diversity reflected in colours of different regions also present in the pieces. Aside from the cultural symbolic, the time-consuming chalk line painting showed Yap’s respect for the technique as one of the most initiative-taking techniques utilized for art creation. Exploring time and memory in art creation alongside Yap Chee Keng is the photography of Chien Yun Ping . His recent works put emphasis on time as the key factor by practising the early techniques of photography - cyanotype and gumoil print. The artist chose the photos he took in the past decades of his professional life, redeveloping them with the aforementioned techniques and adding painterly touches to the photographs. Through this process, Chien retrospects not only the development of visual technology but also how his personal memories are stored in different stages. In a time when people take pictures with smartphones and upload them in the digital devices non selectively, Chien goes about his concept another way by transforming the darkroom into a light room, and shifting the shooting moment into a slow process of looking back at the past. The two artists try to redefine the handcrafts and to leave traces of bodily efforts in art as a contrast to the image inundation of the digital era. The memories they represent are more pure than technologically-intervened memories, reminding us that the most fascinating moments never repeat themselves, and could appear even more impressively as works of art.
