Hiding the Melancholy

This project is called “Hiding the Melancholy”. As the title of the project suggests, the theme and motif of the work is to unveil the hided melancholy in people’s heart. The subject of the work are people and masks. Though the work depicts the portrait of the girl and boy, the faces of them are covered by mosaics, making it impossible for people to see their faces. As a result, when the girl is playing a guitar or sitting beside a rusty steel pole, audiences will focus on her face while they fail to see what the girl looks like and what her facial expression is at that moment. By using the techniques of mosaics to cover the figure’s face, this project expresses the theme of “hiding”. For example, though we would contact or communicate with many people every day, while all these people may wear masks on their face, so it is impossible for us to know their true personality or their true emotions. At the same time, when people are trying to hide their emotions or feelings, they are just like the girl in the photographs—people will never truly know who they are and what they look like. Moreover, in this project, the contrasting color palettes are applied as a way to express the theme of “melancholy”. Melancholy is a subtle and complicated emotion of human beings. Though it is hard to be expressed, and most people would hide it in their heart, melancholy will still have great impacts on people’s everyday life. For example, people may feel confused or lost their personal identity when they were in melancholy.

 

Social Phobia

Illusions

This artwork is called “Illusion”, and the theme of the work is to express the senses of nihility and ethereality. The main subject of the work is the photograph of me, and I choose my own profile as the subject to show that every individual can feel confused and helpless when they were young. The technique I use in this work is the painting on several layers of the canvas or boards—the first layer is the photograph of me, then I masking them with another canvas to add the images of sky and lake, and in the last canvas, I add the decoration such as the birds and the title of the work—illusions. The size of the letters is enlarging from the bottom to the top, which symbolizing the thoughts and emotions of people are becoming complicated, and people are captured by their illusion. All the photographs and images used in the works are my own photography works, and I combine them to discuss the theme of illusions.