「我的創作充滿了無止境的實驗，每一步過程都在不斷探索其中的可能，也一直在失敗。 所謂『成功是偶然的，失敗是必然的』。」台灣的藝術家吳季璁笑說。創作有時候更像一場實驗，不斷地嘗試、失敗再失敗；期待一次偶然，創作出「成功」的作品。吳季璁近年的作品《氰山集》系列，就是在繁複又偶然的創作過程中，與時間和光線搏鬥、磨合與交融，完成一場又一場的實驗。
Time, Light and Experiment
Exposé by Wu Chi-Tsung
- Words / Elva Pang
- Translation / Gabriel So
現於世界畫廊（Galerie du Monde）展出的《現 Exposé》正是把吳季璁近年的實驗作品《氰山集》（Cyano-collage）向大眾呈現出來。2019年時，他在台北舉行的個人展覽《東橋西照Echo》也有展示《氰山集》系列，同樣是穿越詩意山水的概念，但展示方式卻是截然不同。《東橋西照Echo》把作品展示在一所有歷史感的殘舊大樓裡，部分畫作更是隨意地貼在石灰剝落的牆上或是放在檯的邊緣，任由它懸垂在地上。這次在方正、潔淨又優雅的畫廊裡展出，又是另一種體驗吳季璁作品的方式。「我們刻意地把一幅大型六聯屏作品放置於展場入口，令觀眾必須要繞過這作品才看到其他展品，如行山一樣，攀過一座山才看到其他的風景。我們希望觀眾能夠一層一層地發現和探索，如中國山水畫強調的『可行、可望、可游』；吳季聰塑造他作品中的風景時， 也是懷着這種精神。」展覽的策展人郭瑛說。她在佈展時意外地發現六聯屏的板子間透出了光束，若隱若現光線正是呼應著中式園林中的影壁，讓觀眾開門見山地看到仿若懸浮空中的作品，並擴闊了對空間的想像。
「無論我創作什麼媒材的作品，我的思考方式與投射的世界都是繪畫的、山水的。 只有在傳統與現代、東方與西方之間遊走，才能讓我更意識到其中改變的東西是什麽、共通的地方是什麼，而不變的又是什麼。」吳季璁說。從小喜歡繪畫的他，在大學時代開始嘗試各種媒材，但他始終鍾情於影像本身。今次展覽除了《氰山集》，也有較早期的《皴法習作》（Wrinkled Texture），這兩個系列都是源於吳季璁對數位攝影的不滿足。「數位攝影生成影像方式只有一種，也就是說當代彷彿只剩一種方法做攝影，於是我想回到攝影的本質去紀錄光線本身，讓材質與技術更開放，並結合不同紙張去實驗。因而回到更古典、時間性更強、更不可控的氰版。」他這次的實驗方式使用了古老的氰版攝影法，來創建紙上的紋理——把中國宣紙浸泡於塗布感光藥劑之中，透過直接曝曬於陽光下和過程中不斷調整重塑紙張的皺折，創造了美麗的質感與層次。陽光猛的時候，紙上會呈現深藍色，陰天時藍色會變得淺一點；深淺也會因曝曬的時間而有所不同。在反復的嘗試後，吳季璁挑選喜歡的部分，並放在捲軸上，成為《皴法習作》。《氰山集》則是在這基礎上加上拼貼及繪畫，把雲霧裡的群山峻嶺立體地呈現出來。這不但蘊含著中國傳統水墨畫裡的山水意境，還記錄了當下的時間、光影明暗和身體姿態的表達。
中國的山水畫表現的是情景合一，那麼吳季璁創作時又寄喻著怎樣的情感呢？「《皴法習作》和《氰山集》系列通過將筆墨置換為攝影，探索的是「山水」的可能性，在試圖拓張山水的邊界與想像空間。我們對於創作的每個環節都進行過無數次實驗，這個實驗的過程可能不太是感性與抒情的，而是在辯證地探索。」吳季璁說《氰山集》系列在今年之前都是控制性很強的作品，他一直追求技術上的極致，例如為了處理畫面中的留白與雲霧，在技法上將宣紙的纖維搓到極薄。即使技術已近乎極致，但他卻感到似乎失去了追求的意義。「近期比較大的突破在於創作狀態更為放鬆，更接近『自然而然』。除了構圖時讓氰版相紙自然地發展，也同時讓我的某些內在的東西自然地抒發出來，這與古人繪畫山水的狀態很相似。在創作《氰山集》時，我漸漸地把自己的意識放在他處，例如收聽廣播節目，讓手無意識地動作，越是這樣越能進入到一種類似冥想的狀態。 」吳季璁說創作這兩個系列時，他思考和追求的都是「形似」，像回應某幅經典的山水畫；但現在則進入了不那麼表象的思考，從而展開更多的可能性。「能夠將自己全然投射進入到一個『可觀、可居、可游』的想像空間，反而更契合水墨的內在精神。」
遊歷在眾多的作品之間，眼睛不禁停留在捲軸的《皴法習作》之上，近看時是一張擁有漸變色彩、皺摺了的紙張，遠看時卻浮現出山水的景象。加上，以最經典的東方書畫形式去結合西方的氰版攝影技術，在現代的語境中延續了傳統的美學。打開卷軸時更會有一種如走到大自然裡或行山時所感受到的柳暗花明，是對那未知景色的興奮和期待，難怪吳季璁笑說他也是私心地偏愛捲軸的《皴法習作》呢。
“My creative practice is filled with endless experimentations. Every step along the process, I am constantly exploring the possibilities within, and always failing too. As the saying goes, ‘Successes are coincidental, while failures are essential’,” Taiwanese artist Wu Chi-Tsung said with a laugh. Sometimes the act of creating resembles an experiment, with its incessant attempts and failures after more failures; one awaits a coincidence to create a “successful” work. Amid a sophisticated and fortuitous creative process, Wu’s recent works the Cyano-Collage series struggled against, adapted to and interspersed with time and light to realise one experiment after another.
Currently exhibiting at Galerie du Monde, Exposé is a public display of the experimental series Cyano-Collage Wu created in recent years. In 2019, his Taipei exhibition Echo also exhibited the Cyano-Collage series, following the same concept of going beyond shan shui (landscapes), but with a completely different curatorial approach. Echo showed the works in a dilapidated building that exudes heritage. Some of the works were attached arbitrarily on walls with lime peeling off it, or lying around the table edge in suspension. Exhibiting the works in a four-square, clean and elegant gallery this time presents another way to experience Wu’s works. “We deliberately placed a large 6-part work at the entrance of the exhibition space, so that visitors must make their way around this work to see other exhibits, much like hiking, where one must overcome one mountain to see other scenery. We hope that visitors may discover and explore layer through layer, as Chinese shan shui paintings often emphasised in the quality of being ‘passable, discernible, navigable’; Wu shaped the landscapes in his work in the same spirit,” said Ying Kwok, the curator of the exhibition. While setting up, Kwok chanced upon the light that seeps out of the spaces between the panels of the 6-part work. The obscure rays echo the ying bi (screen walls) in Chinese gardens, such that visitors are given an uninhibited view of the work that appears suspended, and imaginations about space expand.
“No matter what medium I create with, my mentality and the world that I project are of paintings and landscapes. Only through navigating between tradition and the modern, or the East and the West, am I conscious of what changes, what overlaps and what is constant,” Wu said. Keen on painting since a young age, he began experimenting with different mediums in his university years, but has always been fascinated by images. This exhibition includes the Cyano-Collage series, as well as the Wrinkled Texture series from earlier on, both deriving from Wu’s dissatisfaction with digital photography. “There is only one way to produce images in digital photography, which is almost to say that there is only one way to do photography in the contemporary world. Thus, I wanted to return to the essence of photography to record light itself, taking a more open approach to materials and techniques and combining different papers to experiment. This is the reason I reverted to the more classical, time-consuming and uncontrollable medium of cyanotype.” His experimentation this time took the archaic approach of cyanotype photography to create patterns on paper – soaking Chinese Xuan paper in a photosensitive solution, exposing the paper under direct sunlight, ceaselessly adjusting and shaping the creases of the paper to create exquisite textures and layers. When the sunlight was strong, the paper produced a dark blue colour, and when cloudy, the blue came in a lighter shade; The colour intensity also varied with the duration of exposure. After repeated attempts, Wu selected the parts that he liked to place onto the scrolls, and thus Wrinkled Texture came into being. Cyano-Collage, on the other hand, adds collage and painting on this foundation to present in three-dimensional view the spectacular hills and soaring mountains shrouded in mist and clouds. This not only embodies the shan shui concept in traditional Chinese ink paintings, but also documented time, light and shade and the expression of bodily forms of the moment.
What Chinese shan shui painting presents is the union of sentiments and scenery. As such, what kinds of sentiments were bestowed by Wu when he was creating? “The Wrinkled Texture and Cyano-Collage series swapped the ink and brush for photography, and what they explore is the possibilities of ‘shan shui’. They attempt to expand the boundaries and space for the imagination of shan shui. We conducted countless experiments in every stage of the creation. This experimentation was perhaps not so much as sentimental or expressive, but more of an exploration grounded in reasoning.” Wu said that the Cyano-Collage series was still very much a controlled work before this year. He has been pursuing perfectionism in techniques, such as in the treatment of liu bai (leaving areas blank) and misty clouds in the composition, for which he rubbed the fibre in the Xuan paper to an extreme fineness. As his techniques neared perfection, however, he felt at loss somehow with the meaning of the pursuit. “The biggest breakthrough lately was when the state of my creative process grew more relaxed, and closer to ‘natural spontaneity’. That not only allowed the photographic paper to develop naturally when I worked on the composition, but also enabled certain things in me to be released naturally. This is similar to the state wherein ancient people painted shan shui. In creating Cyano-Collage, I gradually placed my consciousness elsewhere, such as in listening to radio programmes, as I let my hands move unconsciously. The more I do this the more I was able to enter into a sort of meditative state.” Wu also said that while creating the two series, his thoughts and pursuits were “figurative”, like a response to a certain shan shui painting classic; whereas now his thoughts have entered into less literal realms, opening up more possibilities, “To be able to project oneself entirely into a ‘discernible, habitable, passable’ imagined space is more in keeping with the spirit of ink art instead.”
Roaming around so many works, my gaze lingered on the Wrinkled Texture on the scroll inadvertently. Seen in close proximity, it was a gradient, creased paper; seen from afar, the shan shui landscapes came through. Not to mention using the most classic Eastern art forms to fuse with Western cyanotype photography technology is a continuation of traditional aesthetics within the modern vernacular. Rolling out the scrolls, there was even a sense of optimism as one feels when entering into nature or hiking, that is, the excitement and anticipation for the unknown. No wonder even Wu said laughingly that he held a personal preference for the Wrinkled Texture in scrolls.
Wu Chi-Tsung Solo Exhibition – Exposé
Curated by Ying Kwok
Exhibition Period: Now – 13 June 2021
Venue: Galerie du Monde, 108 Ruttonjee Centre, 11 Duddell Street, Central, Hong Kong
- Up next — Everything Is Unpredictable Before It Breaks
- Previously — Misshapen Objects
