Cho Min-Ah x Tsai Tsung-Yu
Huang Yi-Ming:
During the two-day exchange activities, I’ve found that both of you show a strong attempt to innovate in terms of the materials. By " innovate", I don’t mean new experiments in the materials, but to use the traditional materials or techniques and create visual perceptions that are totally different form before. What’s more special is that Tsai’s paintings came from western oil paintings; and after pondering and developing for a long time, he gradually blended into his own paintings the spirituality which Chinese paintings highly focus on. On the other hand, Cho started with the traditional materials of Korean paintings; however, her works turned out to present the texture of western oil paintings. In other words, these two artists started with eastern and western materials respectively, yet both crossed over to the other side. The comparison is very interesting to me. I would like to invite you two to talk about your works.
Tsai Tsung-Yu:
During the time when I was applying for the Ph.D. program in National Taiwan Normal University in 2013, I seriously painted some works in a realistic style. I was not so much into realistic styles though, so I quit drawing for a while after I got admitted to the Ph.D. program. Instead, I threw myself into the study of art theories. During that time, I watched plenty of movies. I’ve always been interested in the language of cinema, and after reading plenty of references, I found that many people thought the possibilities of cinema had not yet been fully explored. This made me turn back and wonder whether painting as a medium had been completely studied. I also gradually figured out " difference" was the concept I wanted. Therefore, I took the two elements, “difference” and “expression”, as my purpose, and got back again to create paintings.
When I started painting again, I had decided to paint it rough. I didn’t want anything traditional inside my works. So the biggest challenge back then was how to make a bad painting (yet not painting badly). I didn’t really set up the subjects, though. Afterwards I got back teaching at school. For me, to create arts and to teach were in two totally different states of mind and body. Therefore I tried starting with my personal hobbies, which were mostly less pleasant subjects like wrestling. This came from my childhood experience. Grown-ups didn’t like the kids wrestling, because they often got dirty and hurt. Also, there were subjects related to uniforms such as soldiers. Because of the unpleasant military experience of my own, I felt that I could handle subjects like them.
As for landscape paintings, because there are more elements in them, I did less, but not completely none. For example, I saw a blackish statue of Chiang Kai-Shek when I was jogging along the riverside in Taipei. I intuitively thought I could deal with it with ink painting. However, I didn’t want my painting to be too political, so I tried statues such as Giuliano de’ Medici and David. It didn’t turn out quite well until I painted the Statue of Liberty and it felt right (Liberty, 2017). Back then, most of the studies of these objects around my daily life started with color lumps. I knew lines were the point of ink paintings though, so later I tried to put them in and find pictures that could be dealt with lines. For example, Michael Jackson’s legs in Michael (2017) belong to this kind of works. One thing that was rather difficult when making ink paintings was that they usually need to be done in one go. Therefore, when an idea popped into my head, I had to restrain myself from drawing it. I wouldn’t put my hand to it until reflecting and finally knowing I could deal with it. It wasn’t easy to restrain the impulse.
I’ve learned the concept of "void" and "empty space" from my previous ink works, and recently I’ve been bringing them back to oil paintings, which has generated some new visual perceptions. However I’m still working on it and experimenting.
Cho Min-Ah:
My works were mainly painted with traditional Korean painting materials. Korean paintings are like Japanese paintings or Taiwanese ink paintings. Normally the painters use ink to draw the outlines and create the ink washes. As for the colors, they combine color powders with animal glue as the adhesive. The works are normally painted on Korean paper. During my studies, my teacher kept emphasizing that we should find new possibilities for traditional paintings. As a result, I’ve always striven to go beyond traditional boundaries in terms of the composition and expression, and the works I’ve done are very different from traditional Korean paintings. In respect of the method, I often add a step of interviewing the research subject before creating the work, mainly because I hope that besides my personal views, some relatively objective opinions can also be discussed inside my works.
In 2015, I took "circus" as the theme. Before creating my works, I interviewed five Korean young adults aged almost 30 and asked them about their living conditions back then. There was a quite popular phrase called "Hell Joseon" from 2015 to 2016. Back then, economics in Korea wasn’t good, and the younger generations weren’t doing well in terms of jobs, relationships or other aspects. After the interviews I organized the content and made a book (Skills and No.How), and I drew a series of illustrations to put inside. I completed a manifesto of how to survive in a hell country. I chose circus as the theme because to me it’s a concept of paradox. It’s a place that makes the impossible possible, and people inside must have incomparable skills to survive, which was very similar to the lives of Korean young people back then.
Afterwards I went on further discussing the labor problem in the lower class. Hierarchical competition is highly emphasized in the Korean society. People want to keep improving their abilities, and don’t respect laborers enough. Even I myself often do so unconsciously. Therefore in the six-meter scroll I painted in 2016 (Skills and Knowhow), I put together many stories of laborers. Although the people in the painting are all connected, I intentionally made those characters ignorant of the relationships they’re in with one another. Besides, I took away their personalities, and made each character look almost the same as one another and make a certain movement. The viewers can’t exactly know what they’re doing. By doing so, I want to express our indifference toward these laborers.
When I was working on this issue, I often felt that even though these characters in the painting are doing their jobs, they overly underestimate their abilities. They have little expectation toward the future. They work just to meet the most basic needs. So in another work of mine (Bored at the Time), I intentionally created a composition of a production line, in order to connect the laborers and the production machines. I hope this can remind the laborers that with more skills accumulated, even those repetitive jobs might upgrade or give a sense of achievement similar to what people get when they beat video games. I wanted to find a paradoxical yet representative way to talk about this issue.
Furthermore, I used " pigeons in the city" as the theme in my solo exhibition this August ("In a Detached Position"). Before creating the works, I also did a survey on the Internet, but it ended up with two extreme results. Among the two hundred or so responses, half of them thought pigeons were cute, while the other half thought they might carry diseases and were gross. Actually pigeons are not the only case. Everything in our life probably has two sides, just like my works. They might look easy and chill as first glance, but normally there are serious and rigorous designs behind. I hope the viewers can effectively understand the meaning I want to express.
Huang:
I would like to ask Cho why it is important to do the interviews before you create your works.
Cho:
I think the interviews let in more objective opinions to my works. Besides, during the exhibitions, the artists are usually not around, so the viewers might not be able to deeply understand what I want to convey. Therefore, I think if I weave in diverse opinions when I’m creating the works, viewers can understand more when they’re facing them. During my residency in Pier-2 this time, I also interviewed two girls about gender and national identity, because I hope to add in some opinions from Taiwanese residents in my works done in Taiwan.
Huang:
Tsai has mentioned that artists should keep a distance if their works get involved with politics or certain issues, or else their works might become illustrations. How do you see Cho’s works with the interviews content added in?
Tsai:
The "illustrations" I mentioned actually appear more often when artists are dealing with hot topics such as the Hong Kong issue. If they’re discussing it right now, they have to be very careful, because there’s already a lot of information. If there’s no personal viewpoint and just citation or composition related to the issue, it’s easy for the works to fall into my so-called "illustrations". Let’s get back to Cho’s works. I think she’s intentionally bringing her point of view into the pictures, because she mentioned what she had presented in her works was actually the attitude. When faced with the same issue, different creators would normally have different standpoints. For example, when I encountered obstacles with painting, I chose to stop and read. However, books are also written by someone else, and there are certain viewpoints in them as well. Although being exposed to other viewpoints can make me realize my weakness, this is not the only way.
Huang:
I would like to invite you two to talk about how you like each other’s works.
Tsai:
What I like the most about Cho’s works is that she can put lots of elements in one single picture. Each item is a tiny thing in life, but she combines them very well. My works are about tiny things as well, but I am not able to combine them together. Therefore I have to hold an exhibition to put all of them in a space, so that they can speak collectively. I might try Cho’s way in the future and combine them together in a single picture.
Cho:
Tsai is good at expressing a single topic with a clean picture, quite different from me because I often stuff in many details in one picture. It takes great techniques to accomplish his kind of works, so I think his painting skills are incredible. Besides he’s very precise in thinking and organizing the whole creation, which is a very admirable talent.
Huang:
It’s glad to see that both of you appreciate each other’s works. I hope the two of you would have even better performance in your future works. Thank you for joining the event this time.
