Artist Statement
In the process of art history, we have been through the time when painters depicted the delicate pictures regarding the myth and the legend. We also have painters who captured the actual scenes they would like to record before the invention of the camera like wars and portraits. What we have now in contemporary art history are artists who would explore and express their thoughts and feelings through the brushes and paints. We communicate with art. We stand in front of the piece, observe and analyze every color and brushstroke on a painting in order to build connections with the painter and get to know what he/she is trying to express in the work.
Every era has their characteristics which have made impacts to art. The biggest impact of these days is the COVID-19 pandemic for no doubt. Since we are all isolated at home, there is no other way for us to build connections with art and the others but using the internet. The network is just so universal now that we can look up thousands of photos of the artwork just by typing a few words. There are a few galleries that I initially planned to visit and now they have all turned into online format. As I visited these online galleries and looked at the painting that showed on my small screen, knowing the fact that the actual colour of this work should be more terrific than what I was looking at, there were questions in my head that I wanted to find out — would galleries be replaced by online galleries in this Information Age?
In this work, I combine painting with documentary media art — recording me putting paints on an apple as well as on the fabric and to photograph it. At that point, the photograph should look like a painting. After that, I will take a photo of this “pseudo apple painting” and see how the audience would react to the work. Would the audience still be able to connect with the art in a virtual format with the confusion of the medium? Would they be tricked? Or would they rather look at the real work?
Finally this work comes with a question for us.
“In the Information Age, can we still connect with the art without looking at the physical object?”
Link to the additional video: https://youtu.be/–7SyYS6rWA