A Clarifying Aspect pf the Recreation of Nature
By Luchia Lee / Ken Howell
No matter how many principles or theories of art have been declared, the fact remains that art is a product of reaction. It can simply present the zeitgeist of its time, but most often is a reaction against the times or against art that has preceded it. Art history seemingly is a smooth development. But in fact as Herbert declared, art is not progressive. The reaction involved in producing individual pieces of art depends on individuals and circumstances. Real art is not transitory like the news, but deeply original. Only through an awareness of history and long term sensitivity to experience can the artist be led toward self-realization. Since self demolition is necessary, the process of creation can never be in balance, and is always rocking and changing. An aggressive method and decisive mind is a secure way to define the element to form the final solid object that is presented to us.
Peychwen’s “Artificial Nature” series takes a strong underlying idea – namely, reaction against the degradation of nature by humans - and transforms it into a soft, beautiful, diffused image.
Peychwen’s work directly announces the new technology with its attractive new image created by humans. Some people object to this new order and rail against it as a fake world; they prefer a more literary way to describe the multitude of senseless ways in which humans corrupt their environment. The reality is that the world keeps moving and all of us must simply admit the changing nature of our milieu.
· Industrial revolution and technological advancement in the past 200 years have yielded astounding improvements in living standards. Yet just in the 20th century, the number of people afflicted by depression-related disease has grown by a factor of one hundred.
· In the past 200 years, over 100 million people have died in war, more than the total of previous such tolls in human history.
· Global warming, caused by rampant expansion of capitalism and consumerism, is changing Earth’s climate at catastrophic rates.
· And in the meantime, poverty is ravaging more and more countries as the world migrates to a 20/80 society where 80% of wealth will be controlled by 20% of the people. Furthermore, world population continues to rise at rapid pace; it will reach 10 billion within the next 50 years.
All these fatal phenomena come from the blind pursuit of material possession and sensual satisfaction, because of a lack of understanding and appreciation of nature, and the role of humanity on Earth. Peychwen looks through these risks and reinterprets them. From these numerous threats, she chooses a subject, and then brings this subject to a visual realization. Since the vividness of original reality cannot be sacrificed, Peychwen uses regular geometrical shapes such as cylinders, rectangular solids, tetrahedra and spheres in her series of installations entitled “Artificial Nature”. The artist also makes increasing use of fluorescent light to define her works. As Paul Cezanne observed, “treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, … [and] introduce into our light vibrations, represented by the reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blueness to give the feel of air.” This kind of artistic originality imposes a manifold structured format on our visualizations. In forming a response to a piece of art, the viewer must take into account the data to be obtained from many perspectives.
Plato’s idea of mimesis is that in mimicking nature our goal should be to express images clearly, not influenced by our emotion or knowledge. In “Artificial Nature,” Peychwen’s interpretation of mimesis, we should not see an exaggeration or a fiction, but rather notice an artificial color, and a quiet, stable, and colorful object that stands beside or in a corner. Then, the atmosphere created by light under the glass reveals the works’ virtue and that of the artist. Because the light is insubstantial, it is spread out and confused; the color seems subtle and floats on the surface. The color, light, shape, and environment together create a bright unlimited perception, thus drawing us towards a point. In this series of works, she didn’t intend to construct any specific genre; her style is herself.
The structure of the universe surpasses human understanding. In contrast, our society was constructed by human reason. Thus, persons who do not have a higher spiritual level and do not respect the invisible world will not care about the value of the existence of human beings. In the Principle of Art, R.G. Collingwood clearly defined art reality and experience. It is rare in our world to mention that art should be prophetic. This means the artist can directly express the secrets of the mind; the secret does not represent him/her self, but the artist acts as a group speaker to articulate a secret. No group can completely know what really exists in their mind. Therefore, they cheat themselves and most of all us when doing research and observing. The lesson is ignorance equals death. There is only one way to redeem this ignorant guilt: art is healing medicine for sick spirits and rusty senses. The movement of modern art always involves destruction of a portion of the self. This contradicts the notion that this movement is simply a powerful influence for renewal.
Reflecting the artist’s religious consciousness and humanistic thoughts, Peychwen’s work expresses her prophetic and warning character. Through art, she achieves realization of her own mission, and contributes on a spiritual passionate level. Peychwen has direct, frank, transparent ideas, and a logical character, along with a keen, new awareness of the world. To understand the work we cannot ignore the background and life of the artist. Peychwen is characterized by consistency, strength of will, and mercy. She cares about human beings and nature. She always tries to find the possible from the impossible.
She mingles the methods of the literary and visual arts to express concept, and slyly arranges splendid colors. Indirectly, she questions our way of life, and the structure of society, from feminism to consumerism. Her collected works constitute a voyage through an illusive wonderland. Her kaleidoscopic images, composed of synthetic materials, seem natural and invite the viewer’s touch, but always prove to be untouchable.
Flower petals are delicately layered in Peychwen’s work to express the beauty and tenderness of flowers. She embeds them in translucent solids in a presentation of the feminine sense. Flowers always attempt seduction; they have long been used as a symbol for female issues. Artificial nature at first glance seems unrelated to female issue, but the relationship bears further analysis.
Peychwen has a long history of treating feminist subjects, frequently taking examples from Chinese history or culture. This may explain why she has chosen to employ flowers or leaves in her work. In Artificial Nature, her roses are composed of petals pillowed one upon the next, leading to a seductive and exotic result. These flowers are both free of restriction and calm. Yet, constructed as they are of synthetic materials and embedded in geometric objects, they are also unreal and alien.
Peychwen’s work depends not only on its visual aspect, but also on its position in space. In “Catching,” she does not give up color in order to solve the dimension problem. Instead, she arranges three-dimensional animations and projections to spotlight the piece. Thus she creates a space with dramatic light and many images of gliding a butterflies slowly moving their wings above lovely flower petals.
Although we know the scenario is unreal, we don’t trust this initial impression. Upon touching the image, we realize it is just an image - an illusion. But, we have already taken action. Thus, this work produces a sense of loss and becomes a test of human response. External chaos is simply a reflection of internal imbalance. This butterfly and flower metaphor probes appreciation of beauty and self-identification of the space. Those objects surrounding us are the operands of our senses. Measure in art takes the form of size, structure, line, color, and proportion. But in “Catching,” all these parameters guide us towards an illusion and not towards truth. Another perspective on “Catching” can be gained by viewing it from a corner of the space. When another viewer enters the darkened space, only his outline is distinctly visible because he is backlit. This is reminiscent of the situation with the butterfly images that all turned out to be insubstantial – with of course the ironic difference that these fellow audience members are quite real but difficult to perceive.
No matter how artificial or full of illusion, no matter how technological, Peychwen’s art always strives towards one goal – renewal of the spirit. This is vital to all civilizations, no matter their philosophy, politics, science, or governance. To present an emotionally clear sense image has never changed as the goal of the artist. Creative fertile imagination is a treasure, and will be the foundation for new civilizations.
