Conscious, Subconscious
2023
20"x20"
Acrylic on canvas
Meditative painting practice
The concept of this work is to counteract my habit of always using earphones - especially during art-making progress. The chosen music/soundtrack isolates me from the surroundings, allows me to have a vision of how the artwork would look like (should look like) in my head, and thus subconsciously let my imagination lead my practice - I know what I am going for (future) but I don't exactly have the control of what I am painting with each brushstroke (present). On the other hand, without music, I easily get distracted by the surrounding noises, and cannot concentrate. Using earphones or not both divert and interrupt my consciousness of the present.
​
On the contrary, for this work, I decided to paint without playing any music, and challenge myself to focus on every single brushstroke, without getting disturbed by the noises that I heard outside the studio. To create the line work, I only used a thin, pointy calligraphy brush to apply white acrylic paint on a misted green acrylic background. It was much harder than using markers or felt tip pens, yet the point of using such material was to have a full awareness of each movement - trying to keep the lines as clean as possible.
​
I consider this practice as a form of meditation - to be mindful of the present moment and to have a connection between the mind and the body: When I meditate, I have to start by focusing on my breath - its duration, rhythm, temperature, etc; in yoga, to keep balance I have to focus onto one point on the floor and steady my breath. For this artwork, my "focus point" was not just the tiny brush tip, but also its shadow. I found out that by looking at the shadow of the brush, I had a better control - almost precisely - of where the brush tip will touch the canvas.
The line work was done in two sessions: In the beginning, I used a thinly diluted white acrylic to paint the distracting noises which I heard from the studio's window - the train, the construction, birds, people shouting, etc. After that, when my body (hand and arm) became acclimated to the brush, I started to use white acrylic (with a thicker consistency) to paint over with cleaner lines. The distracting noises were painted mindlessly, as I was only trying to depict different sounds with different textures according to how I felt about each sound - like how I used to listen to music while painting in the past. However, in the second session, I became more careful, and more accurate with the brushstrokes, and attempted to fill in the whole canvas using only one stroke. This would be more visible under UV light as I went over this part once more with phosphorescent ink at the end. I didn't plan or imagine for what the finished work would look like beforehand, yet I had full awareness of where my hand and brush were going at every moment. I simply followed the rhythms of my breath. It depends on the viewers who will tell what the final structure of the painting looks like to themselves.
Revealed painting under Ultra-violet flashlight
Photos taken in storage room a.k.a dark space
It was a challenge trying to paint in one brushstroke, but I think it will be a bigger challenge for the viewers to follow the brushstroke's direction when they look at the work.