Zhen (Michelle)

Curatorial Rationale

With this body of work, I want to explore the idea of “reality, truth, and belief.” I wish to present my understanding and exploration of the keywords and to encourage viewers to reflect and construct their own opinions judgments on the idea presented by my artistic intention. “Reality, truth, and belief” are words that represent philosophical ideas that do not have explicit explanations and are often argued and challenged. These words often prompt profound thinking and thoughtful reflections. I believe that art is a form of language and should not only focus on aesthetics but also to be used to communicate ideas. I personally enjoy artworks that express sophisticated views and opinions of the artist. I want my viewer to not only enjoy the aesthetic aspect of my work, such as the use of color, techniques, and media, but also think about my intention in presenting this piece and its connection to “reality, truth, and belief.” To facilitate the communication of my intention, I used symbolism in all my works. The keywords are intangible, aeriform, hard to define, thus making it difficult to visualize or to precisely present them. The use of symbolism depicts the nature of the keywords - intangible and variable - and allows viewers to use their imagination to interoperate and construct their own judgment based on the artistic intention and the keywords. For example, I used wires in my project. As wires are often used to make fences, it symbolically represents being protected. However, the viewers might have a different perspective about what the wire represents, which is what I wish to accomplish with my works – reflection and unique perspective and judgments from the viewers. 

The body of work is composed of various media, like watercolor, sculpture, and photography. Each media represents a different approach taken to explore my theme. I took this as an opportunity to improve my skills and experiment with new materials. The exhibition space combines all the artwork together and makes the whole area itself an artwork. The exhibition as a whole presents my understanding and exploration of “reality, truth, and belief.” The body of work combined by the exhibition space presents viewers with a new “reality and truth” while challenging their “belief.” Moreover, the sequence in which viewers see the artwork is in the order that I created them. I arranged the pieces in this order to share with the viewer the steps that I have taken to explore the keywords. As well as demonstrate my development as an artist. Moreover, some of my pieces are placed at a particular elevation to the eye to contribute to the convey of my intention. For example, the pieces with mirrors are placed at eye level to viewers. The connection between the artwork and the viewer is essential for my works, as I wish to encourage communication between the viewer and my artistic intention behind the work. To prompt communication and reflection in viewers, they need to feel engaged with the artwork and that they are a component of the artwork. To achieve this engagement, I adopted some visual impacts constructed by techniques like the one-point perspective and materials with symbolic meaning like mirrors. The one-point perspective techniques drawn the viewers into the piece, and the mirror reflects and viewer making them an element of the artwork. The viewer not only sees the artwork, but they also see them themselves with the work. 

I intended to use the strong connection between my work and viewer to present my understanding of the keywords, challenge the conventional ideas, and prompt reflections in viewers regarding the meaning of “reality, truth, and belief.” I also intend for the viewers to feel a little curious about my intention and message behind the work after they have seen my piece, as only with curiosity that viewers will think deeply and attempt to understand the piece from their perspectives. Thus, achieving the vision I had for presenting this body of work – explore “reality, truth, and belief” with relation to the viewer’s perspective. Lastly, with all the different media and materials experimented, I have achieved my aim to improve my artistic skills and learn as an artist.