June Preview 2021

Artistic Pursuit

I continue on research of human vision.  As the researches go deep, I understand and distinguish the difference of visual physiology and visual psychology and how they related to art.

Our physiology vision has physiological limitation. The limitation defined as: first, our eye can see about only 120 degree vertical and horizontal, compare to owl can see 180 degrees; second, our vision does not restore the 120 degrees that the eye can see into clear images, only a small point seen by fovea of eye which is about 4 degrees can form a clear image, most areas are vague. This visual perception is reflecting on my art, such as the work below, “ Gone With Wind”.

Our psychology vision is connected to physiology vision, but it plays its own role. Psychology vision is infinity, it involved with reflecting the real world, memory, storing the experiences, imagination, dreaming, combination, and more. When I research in this field, I was curious: What is the relationship between psychology vision and visual art? how artist understands and caters to the visual psychology? what is the difference than I researched previously which was focusing on visual physiology?  In this semester, I research how our brain and psychology play an important role in vision. This clarify the difference between “ See “ and “ Look“, and how these difference impact art creation. When we “see” something, we just see broadly, not actually pay attention on it. This defined as we see by our peripheral vision . When we “look”, it means we pay attention to an object we are interested on it, we want to know it better, we want to look the details. This defined as we see it by our fovea. “See” or  “ Look” controlled by our brain, it is psychology reaction. It can be passive or proactive. If a scenery or object greeted into our eye, yes, we can say we “See” it, but actually do not really “look” at it, we do not pay attention on it, we do not get the details. When our brain instruct eyes to “look” something, or something such as light, color, contrasting and sound attract our eye to “look”, these are “Look” activities. Therefore, our observation is subjective.

The visual subjective impact artist how to create their art, include how they observe the world around us? How to express their perception on art work? And how their want the audience to see their work? Also it impact audience to receive the information of visual images, include How they “See” everything on the art work?  How they “look” at the image? What is the meaning? These all involved with visual psychology.

To express my understanding of visual psychology, I found a good example which is the pictograph. They are reflected real object but not realistic; they pictures which resemble what they signify but not narrative; They are images but symbolize; They are the reflection of real objects in the psychology vision of the ancients who created them, and the images seen and formed by their mind eye. Mind eye is another word of psychology vision. It can be described and interpreted as: “Imagine the table where you’ve eaten the most meals. Form a mental picture of its size, texture, and color. Easy, right? But when you summoned the table in your mind’s eye, did you really see it? Or did you assume we’ve been speaking metaphorically? “ (1)

My series of paintings of pictographs try to express psychology vision.

 

Autumn scenery – “ Gone With Wind”

The richness of golden autumn. In addition to being a harvest and happy season, it is also the best season of the year. Many artists like to paint autumn, usually like its colorful colors, clear sky, and fresh air. We have seen many paintings of beautiful autumn scenery. How to paint a unique and different autumn? It’s the question I want to think about and address. I chosen to Intercept the middle section of the forest, I emphasized the vague of falling leaves and tree branches, reflect my understanding of vision. In fact, the falling leaves are not clear at all. Then painted very clear and detailed birds, and show lines as thin as iron wires, creating a very strong visual contrast. 

It was the first time I tried to paint flying and moving wings. 

 

Pictographs Series

Pictograph as a pictorial symbol for a word. Pictographs were used as the earliest form of writing, many ethnic groups have their own pictographs, such as Egypt, Africa and China.

Chinese pictographs were created by ancient people about 4000 years ago or earlier. They are extracted from the observations and memories of the ancients with the world around them which formed the simplest pictures and patterns of ancient society. For example: “Turtle” character looks like the side shape of a turtle; “Horse” character has body, horse bristle, legs, look likes a horse; “Fish” has a fish head, body, tail. They are not realistic, they just “look like”.

Chinese characters started with the form of pictographs, then they have evolved over several thousands of years to include many different styles, or scripts. The main forms are: Oracle Bone Inscriptions (Jia Gu Wen 甲骨文), Bronze Inscriptions, (Jin Wen 金文), Small Seal Characters (Xiao Zhuan 小篆), Official Script (Li Shu 隸書), Regular Script (Kai Shu 楷書), Cursive Writing or Grass Stroke Characters (Cao Shu 草書), and Freehand Cursive (Xing Shu 行書).(2)

I chosen pictograph as an element for my series art, because I found that they fall into my vision research. I believe these images were created involved human psychology vision, they came from the mind eye of ancient.  For me, they are a kind of symbol and culture, and their pictographic features are the basis and inspiration of my creation, as well as the new ideas derived from my selection of the subject and various elements of the painting during the creation process.

Contemporary writing has evolved into sensible, conceptual, abstract, and ideology communication. I like the original function of pictographs for visual communication. Pictographs are direct, figurative, clear, understandable. “Early written symbols were based on pictograms (pictures which resemble what they signify) and ideograms (pictures which represent ideas). It is commonly believed that pictograms appeared before ideograms.” (3)

I use the pictographs as elements for my painting creation, it is a special conversation with the traditional and past. I, as a current human being and artist, I stand at the modern times after thousands years of the pictographs being invented, I am so passionate to experience the wonderful creation of ancients.

I designed patterns for the background related to each pictograph, such as water wave go with fish, clouds go with bird.

I try to build a bridge between tradition and contemporary. I have to think: How can I endow the old culture a new life? How can I combine the old and new? How can I use modern concept and technique to express my understanding of the origin of pictographs? I considered the pictographs from thousands years ago have faded, the clear images I created were come from my mind eye.

This group of works of mine has made an experiment study on the “ Symbol”, “form”, “space and plane”, “vision and light”, etc., and explored the various possibilities of my “Art of Focus”.

Cite:

(1), What Does it Mean to ‘See With the Mind’s Eye?’ – The Atlantic

(2), Introduction to Chinese Characters | Year of China (brown.edu)

(3), History of Visual Communication | Ideograms

(4), https://www.google.com/search?q=象形字鱼&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwihrKT6-7zxAhUsh-AKHSOtA2UQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=象形字鱼&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzICCAA6BAgAEB46BAgAEBg6BAgeEApQhW1Y2sUBYJDhAWgEcAB4AYABYIgBlgiSAQIxNZgBAKABAbABAMABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=xCLbYKG6N6yOggej2o6oBg&bih=635&biw=375&client=safari&prmd=isvn&hl=en-us

Character “Fish” evolution. (4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank You!