Where Nearness Refuses Touch

Today, we perceive most of the world through a virtual realm filled with text and RGB images reflected on black glass. It may appear to be a space that connects distant things, yet since we cannot even reach out and touch it, it can hardly be called a place—it is, in truth, a non-space.

In the physical world, even two objects pressed tightly together always contain a minute gap between them. Though nothing seems to happen there, on a microscopic level, each gently resists and depends on the other, maintaining balance without destruction. As temperatures rise, they expand; when winter comes, they contract. The gap narrows and widens, serving as a space of safety that protects both from harm amid the tremors of the external world.

My work aspires to this kind of play—a subtle looseness that allows tension and movement between things. Internally, this play refers to the empty space where visible light dissolves into darkness. Just as countless, spontaneous narratives arise in the mind when gazing at the night sea, I intend for the viewer—when confronted with a black surface stripped of color information—to actively fill and empty that space, a place of hospitality. Externally, it signifies the play between the artwork and the body. At first glance, the painting may appear to be a monochrome black rectangle, yet through its drawn textures and the subtle gloss they create, it pulls the viewer in and then pushes them away again—a space of reflection shaped through movement.

For this exhibition, I have painted subjects such as earth, rock fractures, mountains, and trees—entities that are always connected to us by gravity yet often lost to the inertia of forgetting. Even when light fades and night falls, nature remains there, keeping its distance from us. Likewise, when the lights go out and darkness descends, the painting, as matter, continues to hold its image in silence. The distance at which one can close their eyes and still reach out to touch it—the physical distance that cannot be pinched or zoomed with two fingers—is what situates my painting at the threshold between the virtual and the corporeal.

I do not dare to call what I paint “Nature”. Rather, I humbly transfer, as if taking a rubbing, the surface of nature that can be perceived through a few of our human senses, including sight. Heaven and Earth are not benevolent (天地不仁). Nature holds no emotion, no compassion, no love toward humankind. Such feelings belong solely to us—and therein lies our infinite freedom.