I am always thinking of the possibility of interaction between painting and space. Is it possible to construct a space with the narrative of the picture? What is the physical connection between painting and space? With this premise in mind, I have found a special opportunity to exhibit.
IT’s ALL FUN UNTIL is a thematic exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts China Society. The exhibition takes a playful approach, turning the exhibition site into a playground based on temporary and in situ play, and also becoming a platform for artists and audiences to create together. I was attracted by the humorous attitude of the exhibition, but also by the venue. It is located in Safehouse in Peckham, a house in a state of disrepair. Architecturally, it is more of an intimate home than an open public exhibition space.
It is this dark, dilapidated space that reinforces the intimacy between the works and the viewer. The viewer is so distracted by the furnishings in the 'home' that he cannot tell which is the artwork and which is the furnishings for a while. Unlike the white cube space, the viewer's sight is disrupted. Moving between the works and the furniture, reality and dreams, inside and outside. Making new connections between things. For me, this is a tactile vision.
Just as how suffering is engraved in the DNA of humanity. Dilapidation, more than newness, evokes a sense of resonance. The still peeling wall coverings, the flickering incandescent lights, the creaking floorboards with their shaky instability, all the elements that structure view's childhood memories of a space. Wandering through the exhibition as we wander through each other's time machines. The paintings are like flickering fragments that connect to the artist's intimate individual experiences.
Undoubtedly, the playfulness of the exhibition space itself enhances the interest of the works themselves. An interest that brings a strong sense of excitement and exploration to the viewer from the first step into the house. The viewer encounters the artwork as if it were an adventure. This playfulness also catalyses the artist's and curator's imagination of the space, where are the boundaries of the artwork when the artwork and the space bleed into each other? I don't deny that space gives my work more narrative possibilities, but I'm not sure wether the narrative connection between the two works I showed establishes a sense of space for the viewer - a more private and humid space.
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