Photographer Elliott Wilcox @ellwilcox
MUA Mari Kuno @_kunomari
Makeup Products by Weleda UK @weledauk
Model Domin Chong @domin_chong
Represented by Anti Agency @antiagencyldn
Although I majored in sculpture in college, I was not known for hiding in the city series photos instead of sculptures. In my photo works, the artwork is the process of my body disappearing into the environment, and photography becomes the medium to record the body's actions and present the results.
Until I felt that I could use my body as a material to be part of the work, which started on September 11, 2001, before, I was only looking at the body works of other artists, just appreciating the form, without a deep feeling for my own heart. But when I saw the news that the World Trade Center in New York was attacked by a plane from the thick black smoke the instant collapse, I felt the unprecedented crisis of life. Since then, I began to try to create works with my body. At first, I found a very tall building in Beijing and ran down the emergency stairs as fast as I could to experience the reaction of life when it was in danger. Then I used firecrackers made of Chinese paintings to wrap around my body as if I were a body bomb, all of which started in 2001,2002. They all come from my instinctive reaction to the external world I experience as a living entity. I felt I was pulled by something indefinable and wanted to find an exit. And art gave me the possibility.
I started to create my work in 2005, which has been through 18 years till 2023. During these 18 years, my vision has expanded from China to the world. Some of my works focus on China, and some focus on the whole world. In all my creations, my body is an individual, independent person, and it is my relationship with the world. I paint on my body, which is similar to the original totem, to record the troubles of modern people. I take some background of everyday life, current garbage, and people's troubles as the background of my works. I use some artificial culture and economy as the background, as a kind of concern and inner reaction to the individual, to the whole world, for the entire human race, and to the whole process of culture and economy.
On the face of it, I chose the method of disappearance to express myself initially. Still, most people don't know that it took me ten years of training and constant trial and error to figure out the general direction of my heart before I started. Artistic experimentation is a process of learning about yourself step by step. While digging into my heart, I have discovered the characteristics I am attracted to, which are very important for an artist. For artists, the important thing is to understand themselves. Humans living together face the same environment simultaneously, but different souls have different coping methods. I lock on to use active stealth to communicate with the world, and there must be some potential connection to my life behind this form.
In my idea, art is not just about being interested in it. It will soon wither if you can't get the energy from your DNA to create the art style. During the pandemic, I made virtual paintings, oil paintings, and sculpture creations. Also, I made 3D printing and scanning modelling, presenting a kind of human fragmentation, formatting, and even pixelation changes. The works all discuss the meaning and value of human life in the virtual age, and the titles are called "Now," "Future," and so on. I also hope that through these new works, people after the epidemic can have more respect for themselves and think more about the technology at our disposal and the future of our humanity.
I have always felt that artistic creation should be related to the times, using new modelling methods for artistic discussion and creation. Just like what we have experienced, the rise of NFT digital art after the epidemic. It is a revolution in digital code and virtual technology image. As an artist, it is our responsibility to explore works of art in new contexts and solve how new technologies can discuss where the human soul goes.