“Blinky” (红色幽灵)

It’s the thrill of the chase for me, truly it is. I’m kind of an expert when it comes to these things. Believe me I’ve been working incessantly since my creation in 1980! Around here I’m known as the commander of the ghostly foursome. Obstinate, headstrong, relentless. Some athletes are made, but I was born ready baby! Hunting, pursuing, tailing Pac-Man day in and day out. It’s only living… “It’s a living” I always say!  When my eyes focus on that greedy man, I can’t help but run after him. And run I do. Left, right, up, down, backwards, and forwards! I’m there, I’m always there. You know, I never understood his need for over indulgence and consumption. What is that even about? I prefer the simpler things in life. But hey that’s just me. You do you, and let me focus on my task. I am a man of my word. This haunting is one you won’t forget.

39*39cm

RGB LED display, one-way glass, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

Follow us on Instagram: island6_gallery 

island6 - Blinky

“Wild Blue” (野蓝)

It’s a blue-butterfly day, and the sky is such because particles in Earth’s atmosphere scatter sunlight in all directions. In 1871, Lord Rayleigh published a paper explaining this phenomenon in great detail. The optical phenomenon known as Rayleigh Scattering, refers to the dispersing of electromagnetic radiation, such as light, by particles of a smaller wavelength. Out of all the colors, blue light travels as the smallest waves and results in that wild blue presented on the skies each day. Join the dance of the one-day butterflies, the mythological nymphs, enchanting triplets twirling in the blue heavens. The word for butterfly in formal Greek is “psyche”, as it’s believed to be the soul of the dead. It’s also the name of a mortal woman who was released from death by Zeus and granted immortality. Psyche’s mythological image in ancient art is portrayed with grand butterfly wings. Freed from death, the body of the soul flutters joyously into the forever blue.

51*51cm

RGB LED display, acrylic painting, Vietnamese linen, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

Follow us on Instagram: island6_gallery 

island6 - Wild Blue

“Nanke Dream” (南柯一梦)

“The Governor of Nanke” (南柯太守传) is a Tang dynasty short story about a man living an entire generation in the great kingdom of Ashendon, only to suddenly wake up and realize it was all a dream. Despite the vividness of that world, and the seeming passing of time, only a few hours had gone by. This legend is curiously similar to “Alice in Wonderland”, where the main protagonist travels to a fantasy world of her own in the hopes of finding herself. Clearly, the subject of dreams has been embedded into the very fabric of our being. While some theories suggest dreams are due to random brain activation, most agree with the Freudian theory which claims that they can reveal hidden emotions and desires. A royal road to the unconscious if you will! In ancient Rome and Greece, people believed dreams were messages sent directly from the gods that could predict the future. Whether we’re talking about interpreting the past or the time ahead it’s clear there is hidden meaning in our reveries. I wonder what secrets we’ll uncover when the lights turn off.

102*102cm

RGB LED display, acrylic painting, Vietnamese linen, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

Follow us on Instagram: island6_gallery 

island6 - Nanke Dream

“To the Moon and Back” (月亮在家迎你)

I’m cleaning this entryway for you to come through and I’m really counting on you to take me to the moon and back. Halfway won’t do. I want the ride, sure, but that’s not my only hope with this exchange. The amount of upkeep and diligent attention to detail I’ve invested just to make sure you notice when you come through…that deserves the hard promise of a full round trip. That deserves taking me up to the highest mountain and carrying me all the way back down, even if you break your back doing it. I don’t care about the amount of time it takes, I don’t care about the effort or the words or the intention. I only care that you take me somewhere I’ve never been and bring me back in one piece. Until then I’ll just sort of putz around and keep making sure everything looks tip-top.

65*46cm

RGB LED display, Chinese papercut, Vietnamese linen, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

Follow us on Instagram: island6_gallery 

island6 - To the Moon and Back

“Rapt With Wine And Moon” (美酒美月)

The Yangtze never looked so cozy as the night Li Bai tried to hug the moon. The old tale goes something like this: Li Bai, a famous drunk and poet, was, well, drunk. Of course he was also artsy, and you know how artsy folks get when they drink, right? On that fateful night Li Bai took his boat out to the middle of the Yangtze River (because why not?). What he found in the middle of the river was the moon, staring up at him. “Three cheers!” he may have said as he moved in to embrace his old friend. Li Bai drowned that night, but his poems live on forever. Li Bai is sort of like a Chinese Dionysus—except Li Bai was a man and not a god. Li Bai has been honored as the great man he was by artists through the generations. Soami painted him in nature, and our Liu Dao collective calligraphs his poems in wild cursive script while enraptured in the warm fuzzy glow of a wine buzz as one stumbling down the mountain after perfecting drunken Kung Fu.

146*206cm

Chinese ink and acrylic painting on canvas, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - Rapt With Wine And Moon

“Měinǚ Maniac” (美女疯子)

Do you find difficulties blending in to the seemingly cheerful Asian culture? Do you sometimes find yourself lost in a busy crowd you just can’t relate to? Even after years and years living on the oriental land do you still feel alienated? If you’re not enjoying your life here, look away please. But if you are, please do allow me to share something with you here - my favorite thing to do living here is to watch the Měinǚ Maniacs. The selfie ladies you see on the street know precisely how to fully realize their desires and to be desired publicly. They know how to pose cute, pretending not to give a shit about their larger audience that’s living in the moment with them and watching the whole spectacle. Me, I just shift my gaze a little bit to see the longer view of things… a picture much larger than any of the ones being taken by the beautiful maniacs I live amongst.

46*65cm

RGB LED display, acrylic painting, Vietnamese linen, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - Meinu Maniac

“Lawson Station” (罗森站)

Lawson Station. A cornucopia of freshly made baozi (steamed buns), tea eggs, noodles, and of course hot drinks. What started as a small dairy milk store has burst into one of the most popular convenience store chains in the world. Naturally one would question their recipe for success? I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase by Roman philosopher Seneca, “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.” This is true, but I think he was only partially correct. In fact, Seneca left out a critical component: Action. With this perspective the complete formula should be, “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation plus action”. Think about it, when opportunity and preparation meet there’s actually only potential for luck to occur, but without action then nothing happens. It’s a missed opportunity. Like taking a wrong step and suddenly losing your balance. You see in the grand scheme of things it’s all a balancing act.

65.5*46cm

RGB LED display, Chinese papercut, Vietnamese linen, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - Lawson Station

“Circular Koi” (圆锦鲤)

In ancient and contemporary art, fish are symbols of transformation and permanence. Carp and Water Weeds by Yōgetsu, shows the heavy brevity that such pieces have; simple, the dual carp fish swim in a weedy pond while a Daoist poem floats above. Created in a tradition of master-pupil relationships, this piece is grounded in a commitment to incremental change. In Paul Klee’s Fish Magic, he takes the fish out of water and puts them somewhere in between the Earth and the stars where time is waiting to be unveiled. He places the fish among flowers, suns, and faces, positing fish as a symbol of nonconformity possessing a transcendental ability against physical and psychical limiting factors such as space and time. This is congruent with Daoist rationality and inspires a conception of the limitless potential that comes with advanced technology. Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Still Living sees him suspend a tiger shark in formaldehyde. This shows to his audience that preservation is a mental construct, that even the fastest and most powerful predators one day end. Hirst’s piece is yet another congruency with Daoist notions of preservation and permanence by also indicating the preserving power that comes from the integration of computer systems with daily life.

124.6*124.6cm

RGB LED display, sand & resin coating, teak wood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - Circular Koi

“The Girl From The Gallery Next Door” (隔壁画廊的女孩)

Birds-of-paradise, along with bowerbirds, shrikes, and honeyeaters are part of lineage Corvida. Structure determines function? Maybe. But if this is true, functions don’t always exhibit the same way. I don’t want to open old wounds about the nature of nature-versus-nurture, but even the Godliest among us must admit that environment matters, history matters, circumstances matter, especially when it comes to family. For example, male birds-of-paradise of sexually dimorphic species are world famous for their wild displays in efforts to secure the perfect (re: willing) mate. Some species go from bird-shaped to ballerina dancer in one breath; some wave their wings above their heads back and forth, distracting and hypnotizing their target females; others use their wings like a matador cape while dilating and contracting their pupils alternately with dizzying speed; still others puff their plumage in quite unimaginable ways, all for the sake of the big win. And bowerbirds—don’t get us started on bowerbirds! Much like the rich local Shanghainese, bowerbirds build brightly-colored luxury structures. And almost every single time, it works.

39*39cm

RGB LED display, one-way glass, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - The Girl From The Gallery…

“After Dusk” (黄昏之后)

I have watched the past two hundred and thirty nine sunsets alone. There is something haunting about a sunset, the finality of everything you can and will achieve encapsulated into one sweeping moment - blink and you’ll miss it. But really it’s what follows after that concerns you. The way you watch, powerless, as everything you know morphs into a sinister version of itself. Yes, there is real cruelty in darkness. You try to relive the feeling of warmth over and over again, embellishing its loving embrace; remembering how everything was OK when sunlight bathed your naked flesh. Then the stark reality hits you; no one is there to coo you to sleep anymore. Over and over again you search the bleak expanse of nothing, trying to take refuge in the life you had before you were unwillingly plunged into the abyss. But for now you take a breath and try to enjoy this moment, alone.

89.5*89.5cm

RGB LED display, Chinese papercut, paper collage, Corian&teak

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - After Dusk

“Fluchtpunkt” (消失点)

The vanishing point describes an optical phenomenon in a picture where two parallel lines converge and vanish into one single line. In German, this use of perspective is called “Fluchtpunkt“, which literally translates to “escape point”. And indeed, Renaissance painters, like Masaccio and Dürer introduced this way of seeing to depict urban and interior sites more realistically as Florence and Nurnberg were growing and seen more by people as destinations to escape to. But that’s not the only way one can get lost in art. Another artistic phenomenon called immersion describes the loss of conscious connection with reality while engaging with the medium. In ancient times, the frescos of the Villa of Mysteries in Pompei were the first artistic immersions. Nowadays, the 360° VR-glasses serve as an immersive gaming experience, in which one can jump into a digital world to get away from reality. This offers a chance to blur the border between running away and arriving, real and fake, analogue and digital, letting them converge into only one point. And when we get there, we will find ourselves in a world with an infinite number of vanishing points where escape won’t be necessary.

102*102cm

RGB LED display, Chinese papercut on Plexiglas, paper collage

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - Fluchtpunkt

“Sanlunche” (三轮车)

As the Chengyu suggests, “a fur coat can be made of scraps” (集腋成裘). A man steering a sanlunche (tricycle) sees everything while constantly acclimatising to new surroundings. But don’t expect any deep and meaningful words from him. His wheels keep on turning. What about you? Would you rather see change approaching slowly in the distance or have a head-on collision with it in the moment? Maybe it doesn’t matter, we all read the signs differently. A simple fact of life is that change is inevitable and it continues to happen at a rapid rate in Shanghai. The city’s physical appearance is ever-evolving with an endless amount of buildings being erected to accommodate growth. But it’s not like that would impress William Shakespeare or anything. “No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,” wrote the poet in 1609. “Thy pyramids built up with newer might. To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight.” He’d have hated the Chinese character Chai (拆), meaning to demolish, then. When it gets painted on houses and tower blocks in the country today it means the buildings’ days are numbered. People have protested against these land seizures but for most, the generous payoff that comes with such an order far outweighs sentimental value. Old hats might say unsettling demolition jobs symbolise an erosion of cultural heritage and that new paths are being laid at the expense of the past. Suzhou creek riverbank has seen its fair share of change over the years. If the sanlunche could talk, it would tell a thousand stories. But take it with a pinch of salt, as it’s probably just a load of old rubbish.

51.3*51.3cm

TFT displays, CCD cameras, acrylic painting, teakwood

Art for sale : kiwi@island6.org 

island6 - Sanlunche

“I’m All Over You” (我迷恋你)

You’ve got me in a steamy sweaty pitch-perfect panic the way you look right now. I can’t decide which part of your body to focus favor on when each little land-mine-lot of your hot real estate makes me want to die. Knowing you won’t look that way forever. Knowing I won’t be here forever to look at you even if you somehow did. How your tan is just the right tone and your hair the right length and your height the right heighth, well, I’ve decided to become a great scientist. The greatest. All and only in hopes of halting an aging process that’s sure soon to crumble the mesmerizing monument of you. You have a ruthless monopoly on my senses and attention. Use it while you can. I’m all over you. For now.

Artwork page: https://island6.org/imalloveryou

102*102cm

Price inquiry: camilla@island6.org

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