Viole(‸n)t
"Viole(‸n)t" encapsulates the creative core spanning from the "Plants" series to the "National Highway" series. Through the forced insertion of the lowercase "n" with the caret symbol "‸", the concepts of Violet and Violent are made to coexist simultaneously.
Violet is the residue of perception. It originates from the artificial intervention of grow lights on my balcony—a heterogenous spectrum that leaves a lingering purple afterimage on my retina. This filter is then carried into the experience of long-distance driving, becoming a purple lens through which I view a pure, spiritual world stripped of its temporal and spatial context.
Violent represents the forced order within the environment. In the plant series, violence manifests as physiological intervention to compel growth—a push that defies nature. In Smiling Highway, violence exists in the psychological state of forced endurance: during hours of high-speed movement, the body is disciplined within the narrow cabin, and the will is forced to remain "mounted" and engaged.
Smiling Highway
Smiling Highway centers on the act of long-distance driving, focusing on the psychological states born from monotonous movement. In the experience of commuting between north and south, the four-to-five-hour journey becomes a space for internal dialogue and the generation of the mind. During the drive, consciousness presents itself as a series of illogical yet real fragments: bird droppings on the windshield, mannequins directing traffic, the glare of oncoming high beams, the pressure of a tailgating car, fleeting meals on the go, discarded cigarette butts at a red light, heavy eyelids, and visual fatigue. These momentary perceptions are both trivial and tense, forming the subtle structure of a psychological landscape that stretches with the journey into an endless odyssey.
The car interior is a private space in motion. While the world outside rushes past at high speeds in a rigid, fixed rhythm, the cabin remains relatively static—a psychological vessel temporarily detached from daily routines, a liminal zone between external clamor and internal stillness. The national highway builds a strict order through symbols and regulations: following distance, speed limits, lane markings, and shoulders all demand precision. Yet, it is precisely in this highly disciplined environment that the mind easily fatigues and drifts. This "spacing out" becomes an instinctive resistance to the monotony of driving, allowing one to re-examine the act of everyday mobility.
The work uses painting as its narrative core, combining airbrushing, acrylic strokes, and the modification of found objects to reconstruct the driver’s perspective, rearview mirrors, and road signs. Mirrored objects are transformed into canvases, so the rearview mirror no longer reflects reality but becomes a vessel for the flow of imagination. National highway signs are reshaped into "Plum Blossom Smiles," transforming functional markers into personalized emotional symbols. These images oscillate between real roadscapes and psychological landscapes, overlapping in the midst of motion.
In the exhibition, viewers become fellow passengers, witnessing a journey triggered by physical movement and woven by consciousness. Through this internal wandering on the high-speed road, Smiling Highway invites people to consider how our minds quietly form and dissipate within mundane, continuous travel, and how we might re-understand the world.
Plants with Violet
I remember when the first plant was introduced merely for decoration; now, over a hundred staghorn ferns and foliage plants have occupied the balcony, and the master-servant relationship has quietly inverted. My daily task is like that of a "patrol squad" weaving through the shadows, searching for unusual traces. I am often drawn not to the healthy specimens, but to those sending out "distress flares": a tiny black spot on a leaf, an invasive insect, or a sudden wilted posture. These subtle abnormalities appear to me as glowing signals. In an uncontrollable world, these few square meters of controllable space have become a sanctuary where we find true nourishment in our mutual dependence.
In these works, the purple grow lights—woven from red and blue spectra—replace natural sunlight. They are traces of artificial intervention, catalyzing both the plants and my own hallucinations. The light bodies in the paintings serve as metaphors for rain, light, and energy; they invade aggressively, inducing fantasies of interaction. I use microscopic plant details as a means of perception, internalizing experience into symbolic glimmers—light that exists at the edges of objects, tasked neither with illuminating space nor following physical laws, but existing as pure spiritual consciousness.
The trajectory of the brushstrokes sometimes follows an orderly gradation like contour lines, and at other times stacks with an emotional flow, reinterpreting texture. The boundaries of form emerge between the sharp definition of the brush and the misty transitions of the airbrush. Using painting as the medium and canvas as the carrier, I complete a "mental supplement" (brain-filling activity) with the plants, transforming the observation of reality into a private sensory landscape.
