My artist name, '不美', means 'not beautiful'.
Not a small number of people have asked me why I chose this name.
Today, I want to talk about the relation between my artist name and “perfection”.
The act of tearing paper is, for me, akin to deciphering the meaning of words. It's about disassembling the written work, scattering it, and then reconstructing it. This process is reminiscent of the deep understanding one gains when writing an essay or remodeling clothes.
Remarkably, the closer a work is to perfection before it is torn apart, the more the imbalance and roughness that arises from its destruction and reconstruction form a striking personality. This houses a primal and pure fascination.
Again, my artist name, '不美', means 'not beautiful'. What I once sought was a work of art without a single cloud, a perfect piece. However, I realized that such perfection does not exist. That was when I began to accept that my work could be 'not beautiful'. I embraced being '不美', or in other words, 'not beautiful'.
I have just made my new artwork called “With Heaven’s Help”, consists of four hanging scrolls, each featuring a single kanji character. When combined, they form the four-character idiom '乾坤一擲', which means to leave everything to heaven and challenge a grand gamble of success or failure. '乾' represents heaven, '坤' earth, '一' the number one, and '擲' signifies throwing. In a nutshell, it means to stake everything on one throw of the dice.
In life, there comes a moment when you challenge a '乾坤一擲' grand gamble. However, that moment does not suddenly arrive. If you don't sincerely perform your tasks and prepare without negligence, you cannot determine when to challenge the gamble. It is when you have exhausted all your tasks and are about to challenge the gamble that you gain heaven's aid.
The British author Samuel Smiles stated in his most renowned work, 'Self-Help', 'Heaven helps those who help themselves'. This work also embodies those words. Each character demonstrates its strength, and when combined, they amplify the power as a whole. This represents themes of personal growth, harmony with the environment, and preparation for the ultimate challenge.
Furthermore, through the unique technique of tearing paper, it presents a new set of values revolving around imperfect beauty. To the first-time viewer, the work appears not merely as characters, but as art symbolizing human strength, fragility, and hope.
If you want to know more about this tetralogy, please visit here.
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