Extraordinary machine, 2014 - 2015
Gouache, watercolour, pencil and ink on paper 180 x 400 cm The woman in this work is a self-portrait combined with Michelangelo’s Libyan Sibyl, a prophetic priestess in the Sistine Chapel. As Michelangelo only used male models, she has a very muscular body and by using this male power she turns into a trans powerhouse. I made this work as I was moving from London to Shanghai, whilst I was actually longing to escape to nature and not to a big city. The cat in the bottom left is a way of me focussing all my fears into the image of my cat freezing to death during the journey. Shanghai is still pencilled in, as I didn’t know what it was going to be like, but she is holding the reigns of ambition in her left hand, also symbolized by the green claw. The snake around her waist might betray her. In her right hand she holds a human embryo at its earliest stage, whilst she is weighing up motherhood versus ambition. The butterflies and exposed human heart symbolise her recent wedding. The quetzal bird leading the way is her desire to live in the jungle in Costa Rica. The tiger coming from underneath her skirt roars powerfully into the future she is heading, its roar drowning out her fears. Extraordinary Machine talks about how sometimes being in certain challenging situations requires you to be an extraordinary machine: a person who in chaotic circumstances has to be powerful and in her calm steadiness resembles partly a human being and partly a machine. |
〈超凡的機器〉, 2015
不透明水彩、透明水彩、原子筆、鉛筆、水墨、紙 180 x 400 cm 在這幅作品中的女性是結合了我的自畫像與米開朗基羅《利比亞女先知》的形體(藏於西斯汀禮拜堂)。米開朗基羅僅使用男模特兒作畫,因此女先知的體型相當健碩。於是,藉由這股陽剛的力量,她成了一名跨型別強者。 這幅作品是我準備從倫敦搬至上海時創作的。當時,我其實比較渴望逃進大自然,而非搬遷至另一個大城市。我同時也擔心我的貓在長途旅行中可能會凍死,遂將這股恐懼轉為創作動力,畫成左下方的貓。上海的一切皆相當未知,就如畫中女性以鉛筆創作的草稿。即便如此,她的左手顯示她野心勃勃準備君臨天下(以綠色爪子作為象徵)。她腰間的蛇隨時可能背叛她。她的右手握有人類胚胎,權衡著母親身份與野心。蝴蝶和人類心臟象徵了她近期步入婚姻,而引路的魁札爾鳥道出了她期盼居住在哥斯大黎加叢林的渴望。女性裙子底下有隻老虎在用力咆哮,將她推向馬上要到來的未來,牠有力的咆哮聲淹沒了她的恐懼。 〈超凡的機器〉講的是某些時候當你在面對具挑戰性的狀況下,你需要變成一台超凡的機器──一個在混亂環境中仍可以保持冷靜、穩定的強者就如同半機半人的混合體。 |