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Coochies for Sale 秘密滋味

April 13, 2021 2021年4月13日

Long before homebound activities became the norm due to COVID-19, Lac Hoang and Nguyen Linh Phuong Thao enjoyed spending time indoors. To two formally trained artists, cooking and sewing aren’t just household chores: they are sources of creative gratification and empowerment. While they work independently, the two Vietnamese creatives have a common interest: the female genitalia. Hoang’s brand, Clay Cookies, sells butter cookies in the likeness of vaginas and Nguyen’s Cái lồn gì đấy (meaning “What the cunt”) offers an embroidery service that stitches together ripped clothing with mini vaginas and nipples.

新冠疫情爆发，人人被迫居家，但对于越南艺术家 Lac Hoang 和 Nguyen Linh Phuong Thao 来说不是问题，她们原本就是“阿宅”。她们都是艺术专业出身，哪怕是下厨和缝纫，对她们来说也绝不仅仅是普通的家务，更是她们发挥创意与获取赋能的源泉。虽然二人分开独立创作，但却有着一个共同兴趣：女性生殖器。Hoang 的品牌 Clay Cookies 出售着阴户形状的黄油饼干，而 Nguyen 的品牌 Cái lồn gì đấy （意为“What the cunt”）则提供刺绣作品，用阴户与乳头图案缝补撕裂的衣服。

Lac Hoang
Nguyen Linh Phuong Thao

Women’s sexual organs in art have a complex history. While fertility worship is common in Vietnamese tradition, the vulva is only celebrated for its reproductive function and almost always placed alongside its male counterpart. Paintings and photographs by largely male artists feature female nudity, but the lady bits are often hidden away as if they were vulgar or, at best, an object of mystery. Nguyen finds such representation, or lack thereof, problematic. “Most women, myself included, have no idea what our own body looks like,” she says. Similarly, citing the dearth of sex education growing up, Hoang resorts to online pornographic and medical images to study female anatomy, as they are the only two sources that depict the part up close and personal.

在艺术创作的历史上，女性性器官有着复杂的故事。尽管越南传统文化也存在生育崇拜，但女阴只因其生殖功能而受到推崇，并且几乎总是与男性生殖器官并列放置。在由男性艺术家创作的大部分画作和摄影作品中，虽然也会出现裸露的女性形象，但女性的性器官却常常被刻意隐藏起来，仿佛那过于庸俗，或充其量是神秘的物体。Nguyen 认为这种表现形式或刻意的遮掩并不妥当。她说：“很多女性，包括我自己在内，都不知道自己的身体是什么样的。”同样，对于 Hoang 来说，由于缺乏性教育，她只能诉诸于网络色情作品和医学图片来研究女性的身体，这是唯二她能近距离真实了解这一身体部位的来源。

Hoang became a fervent home cook while studying abroad. She found that, with food, she could bring people together and make them happy. The kitchen affords her a certain freedom absent in the art world where a piece has to tick certain boxes to be considered valid. Since completing her art degree in the midst of the pandemic, Hoang takes on odd jobs to make a living, but her primary source of income has now become selling homemade baked goods. Pivoting from her art degree, she’s now preparing for an alternative career in F&B and is testing the water with her vulva-shaped cookies She sees her pastries as “a happy medium between food and art,” and selling them has helped her learn the ropes of how to manage a business. Just hours after the online launch, orders from curious buyers started pouring in.

Lac Hoang 出国留学期间喜欢上了下厨。她发现食物可以拉近人与人的距离，让人变得快乐。在艺术的世界，总要满足一些条条框框才算“达标”，而厨房却让她在艺术以外获得了一种自由。她在毕业时恰巧碰上疫情，只能打打零工谋生，但是现在她的主要收入来源已经变成出售自制的烘焙糕点。她想运用自己的艺术创意，进军餐饮行业，这些阴部形状的饼干就是她的尝试。她将自己的烘焙糕点视为“食物与艺术之间一种有趣的媒介”，在这个过程中，她也在学习如何经营生意。上网推出自己的烘焙糕点几小时后，她就收到了很多好奇的买家所下的订单。

Hoang’s typical day begins in the kitchen where she mixes simple, utilitarian ingredients: butter, all-purpose flour, and eggs. After kneading and blending food dye into the dough, she starts sculpting fleshy folds with her ring fingers: the vagina, labia minora, and labia majora. Out of the oven, they look slightly puffed as if aroused. She then adorns them with chocolate squiggles and sprinkles, a pearl-like sugar bead sitting on the clitoris.

Lac Hoang 的一天都从厨房开始，各种基本的食材诸如黄油、面粉和鸡蛋成为了她的创作工具。她揉捏面团并加入一些食用色素，然后用无名指仔细地雕琢出肉的褶皱：外阴、小阴唇和大阴唇。从烤箱中取出来时，这些饼干看起来略微膨化，像是性兴奋了一样。最后，她会在饼干上撒上一些巧克力和彩糖，并在阴蒂位置放上一颗珍珠般的糖珠。

Her cookies land somewhere between cutesy and kooky. “While baby pink is the desired shade for vagina-rejuvenation procedures, my cookies are much more saturated and artificial-looking”, she says. She once received a comment on Instagram saying the cookies look like they’re infested with STDs. “Everybody’s got HPV, okay”, she laughs, quoting comedian Ali Wong. Branded as intentionally lowbrow, her edible art feels chaotic, organic, sensual. Despite their appearance, the confections are incredibly tasty.

Lac Hoang 的饼干既可爱又古怪。她说：“虽然人们做阴道修复手术时都想变得粉嫩一些，但我的饼干颜色更深，有一种人造的风格。”曾经有人在她的 Instagram 上留言，说这些饼干看起来像染了性病。她笑着引用喜剧演员黄阿丽(Ali Wong)的话说：“谁还没有过 HPV 呢！”她的艺术饼干有一种刻意而为的低俗化，混乱疯狂，毫不造作，又充满情色意味。不论外形如何，吃起来还是相当美味的。

Nguyen’s elegant needlework is loaded with a darker context. Growing up in a strict, patriarchal household and having survived multiple sexual assaults, she regards hand-sewing vulva shapes as an act of self-care and resistance. A self-described “diligent pussy patcher,” she toils away at an embroidery hoop on most days, spending from several hours to a consecutive week on a piece.

She has been practicing this slow craft on her own for some time before starting an embroidery service as an outlet for intimate, one-on-one conversations with other women. She offers to fix worn-out clothes by embroidering a vulva on top of torn or stained surfaces. She has since given a second life to a variety of garments, including denim pants, T-shirts, knit cardigans, velour blankets, and more. Guided by imagination, she patches rips and exposed seams with blooming vulvas, tiny nipples, or even a rearranged reproductive system.

Nguyen Linh Phuong 优雅的针线作品却透露着一种暗黑的氛围。她成长于一个家规森严的父权家庭，曾遭受过多次的性侵犯。在她看来，手工缝制的阴户图案象征着一种自我保护和抵抗。她自称是“勤奋的阴道缝纫工”，整日埋头在绣花箍上穿针引线，一件作品需要花费几个小时到一个星期不等。

在很长的一段时间里，她一直独自练习这种“慢工出细活”的工艺；现在，她开始提供刺绣服务，藉此与其他女性进行亲密的一对一对话。她在破损或脏污的表面上绣上阴户图案，修补各种旧衣服。到目前为此，她已经翻新过各种各类的衣服，包括牛仔裤、T 恤、针织开衫、丝绒毯子等等。她借助丰富的创意想象，用阴户、乳头，甚至是重新排列的生殖器官来遮盖衣物的裂缝。

The bold project title Cái lồn gì đấy is a play on words. It is an expression of surprise and disgust, the reaction which she predicts onlookers would blurt out when seeing an ornate vulva hanging from a piece of clothing. Across languages, the female genitalia is frequently used in derogatory curse words, implying perceived shame and vulgarity. Clipped and harsh, lồn, meaning cunt, is likely the most offensive sound in the Vietnamese vocabulary. Yet she decides to use it instead of other tame monikers, hoping to dilute its cruelty and reclaim ownership of the term.

大胆的作品标题“Cái lồn gì đấy”（意为“What the cunt”）一语双关，既出人意外，也令人厌恶，她认为这是旁人看到这些衣服上的外阴图案时会脱口而出的反应。在各国语言的粗口里，经常会出现女性生殖器，让这种器官蒙上了一层羞耻与粗俗的色彩。“lồn”这个词意为阴道，发音短促刺耳，可能是越南语最令人反感的一个字。然而，她依然坚持使用这个标题，而不是其他循规蹈矩的标题，其意图在于淡化这个字的冒犯性，重新获得对这个字的话语权。

Graduating from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts, Nguyen is familiar with the deep-seated hierarchy of art media. Oil and lacquer paintings are universally revered, instantly qualifying as “serious art,” while contemporary mediums still have a hard time finding their ways into institutions. In fact, embroidery is especially looked down upon since it only requires relatively cheap materials and basic techniques. Despite being well versed in traditional media, Nguyen chooses to work with this underappreciated medium. She explains her fondness by saying that it reminds her of playing with stuffed animals as a child. Aside from the focus on fabrics, repurposing secondhand things is another prominent aspect of her art. For a piece titled Exposure/Hiding, she installed a wall of vulva cushions made from pieces of cloth her grandmother saved up from the subsidy period, which have little practical use in today’s modern life. Depicting the mysterious veil around the female sex organ, the exhibition space is kept dark and the audience has to use a flashlight if they wish to see her work in detail. With its abstract presentation, the audience doesn’t always recognize the work for what it is right away. When they do, it’s often followed by giggles, embarrassed looks, or raised eyebrows.

Nguyen Linh Phuong 毕业于越南美术大学，对艺术媒介的等级划分尤其熟悉。油画作品是“严肃艺术”，广受推崇，而当代新兴媒介的艺术作品至今仍然难以得到“体制”的认可。实际上，刺绣就一直备受轻视，原因在于其创作只需要便宜的材料和基本的技巧。虽然 Nguyen 也精通传统的艺术媒介创作，但她依然选择了这种未被充分重视的媒介。她说自己之所以喜欢刺绣，是因为刺绣会让她回想起小时候玩毛绒玩具的经历。除了注重面料的选择之外，重新利用二手物品也是她艺术创作的另一个重点。在一件名为《Exposure/Hiding》（暴露/隐藏）的作品中，她铺满了一墙的阴户靠垫，所用的布料来自她祖母在贫穷的年代积攒的布料，这些布料在现代的生活中几乎已经没有合适的用途。整个展览空间一片黑暗，以此突显围绕在女性性器官上的神秘面纱。如果观众想仔细观察她的作品，就必须打开手电筒。加上抽象的风格，观众有时不能马上意识到作品所描画的内容。而当他们看清之后，往往都会吃吃地笑出身，旋即露出尴尬或吃惊的表情。

Having their work available for purchase encourages interaction and further drives conversations about these hush-hush topics. Hoang plans to make cookies that tackle other relevant subjects such as female pleasure and sexual diversity, thus promoting civilized communication on sex. Luckily, Nguyen and Hoang aren’t alone. There’s a movement to normalize discussions about sex and sexuality in Vietnam with a handful of active community art projects that have popped up, notably Bàn lộn (Vulva Talks) which invites participants from all walks of life to draw their perception of the vulva and share their personal relationship with it.

While not intentionally made to provoke, their handcrafted vulvas send a powerful message. They skirt the virtue of modesty, grace, appropriateness; qualities that have confined women by putting them on a pedestal. Through cookie dough and embroidery tools, two young artists put forward their own version of femininity and elevate women’s everyday creativity as a form of art.

创作这些便于购买的作品能鼓励更多的互动，进一步推动人们谈论这些“禁忌”话题。Nguyen Linh Phuong计划制作其他相关主题的饼干，例如女性愉悦和性多元化问题，促进人们对性话题进行更多有意义的交流。值得庆幸的是，Nguyen Linh Phuon 和 Lac Hoang 并非孤军奋战。在越南，人们正开展一项运动，旨在通过一些活跃的社区艺术项目鼓励人们探讨性与性取向的问题，其中一个突出的项目就是“Bàn lộn”（阴道对话）。该活动会邀请各行各业的人来分享他们对阴道的看法与见解，以及自己与阴道的个人关系。

她们的阴道艺术作品并非旨在故意挑衅，但仍传达了一个强有力的信息，抛开了谦虚、优雅和得体这些道德绑架女性的特质。这两位年轻的艺术家通过面团和针线，表达着自己眼中的女性气质，将女性在生活里的平凡创意，变成一种艺术形式。

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Instagrams: @claycookiesvn | @cailongiday_wtc

 

Contributor & Photographer: Ha Dao
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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供稿人与摄影师: Ha Dao
英译中: Olivia Li

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Etched in Graphite 你的故事从城中的空白色开始撰写

April 9, 2021 2021年4月9日

When an artist falls in love with a city, it happens in two ways. There’s the outsider who sees it from a fresh perspective, appreciating the scenes that locals often dismiss (sometimes unnecessarily so). And then there are those who are born and raised in the city and are able to savor the nuances and subtleties that take years to truly understand. So Chun Man falls into the latter category, and his drawings seek to capture every little detail of Hong Kong, the city he grew up in.

当艺术家恋上一座城，通常会以两种方式来表达自己的情感。一种是作为局外人，从一个全新的角度来看待城市，采集那些被当地人遗忘（或没有遗忘）的场景；另一种是作为城市土生土长的居民，在常年累月中逐渐学会欣赏这座城市细微之处的魅力。自小在香港长大的蘇頌文就属于后者，他善于通过绘画，记录下香港这座城市的每一处细节。

Under the moniker Pen So, he draws black-and-white sketches that range from detailed cityscapes and renderings of historic Hong Kong architecture to moments of mundane daily life and dystopian reimaginings of the city. “Many of us who live here take the urban environment for granted,” he says. “But the city keeps being built and evolving over time. Therefore I want to record everything while it still exists.”

他以 Pen So 为名创作了一系列黑白素描作品，将细致的城市景观、历史悠久的香港建筑、平凡的生活场景，乃至在这座城市中滋生的反乌托邦式幻想等等，统统以绘画的形式记录下来。他说：“许多港人都对身处的环境早已见怪不怪了，但其实，这座城市一直随着时间的流逝不断演变。因此，我想趁一切还未改变之前，把印象中熟悉的香港记录下来。”

When possible, So uses his own photos for reference, drawing the snapshots out with ink pens and fudepen brushes on paper. Each piece takes about eight to ten hours total and most are A3 size, although some are smaller. He often draws in a traditional comics-art style, which has become his signature aesthetic.

平时在创作时，蘇頌文常常以实景拍摄照片作为参照，再用墨水笔和毛钢笔（Fudepen）在纸上临摹出来。每幅作品大约需要 8 到 10 个小时完成，通常都是 A3 纸大小的篇幅，偶尔会更小一些。他沿用传统的黑白漫画创作方式，也渐渐成为了他的标志性风格。

So’s idea of creating a historical record can be quite literal at times, with realistic drawings of buildings and landmarks. Some of these buildings still exist as shells of their former selves while others have been completely demolished. “Historic sites have so many stories and so much character,” he says. “New architecture is just a bunch of glass walls.” For example, Kowloon Walled City, the ultra-dense, towering enclave that was demolished in the ‘90s lives on in his catalog. The withering State Theatre, which faces imminent redevelopment soon, is captured in its past glory as well.

他的作品像是以日记的方式记录这座城市，创作的方式直截了当，往往都是写实的建筑或标志性影像。他笔下的建筑，有一些至今仍然保留从前的外壳，而另一些则在近几年已被拆除。他说：“城市中的遗迹埋藏着故事和味道。那些后来新建的建筑却往往只是一堆玻璃砖墙，没什么人情味儿。”例如在九十年代被拆除的密密麻麻的九龙城寨，还有即将面临重建的皇都戏院，都被他用笔记录下那些过往的辉煌。

He also seizes on more fleeting moments that come and go, centered on the city’s inhabitants. The lives of street vendors and newspaper salesmen are just as celebrated in his works as aging storefronts and architectural feats.

此外，他还尤其擅长捕捉城市居民那些稍纵即逝的瞬间。在他的作品中，街头小贩和报纸推销员的生活和那些陈旧店面和宏伟建筑一样引人入胜。

Despite his love for the city,  So also likes to imagine Hong Kong within the throes of disaster. Pulling inspiration from horror movies, he often draws the city in total collapse, with whole city blocks destroyed and skyscrapers toppled over. Zombie apocalypses are fair game as well. “Hong Kong doesn’t face many natural disasters, so people here don’t have a strong sense of urgency in this regard,” he says of his interest in destruction. “I hope my work can be a reminder for them.”

即便热爱这座城市，蘇頌文也常常想象香港陷于灾难的景象。他从恐怖片中汲取灵感，把香港想象成一座彻底陷于崩溃的城市，所有街区毁于一旦，摩天大楼轰然倒塌。丧尸末日也是他常用的题材。关于自己这种对灾难题材的着迷，他解释说：“香港很少有自然灾害，所以人们在这方面并没有什么紧张感。希望我的作品能给观众一些忧患意识。”

In So’s first book, Hong Kong Havoc, readers view the city through the eyes of a character living through a disaster. It’s drawn like a visual diary of the main character. Readers can also add to it by filling in blank post-it notes and other spaces within the book. He’s continued that interactive element with his latest graphic novel, Trap, challenging readers to research and solve puzzles to learn more about the book. “To find out the ending, readers need to search online and view certain Facebook posts and news stories,” he says. “I try to really engage my audience to make them think more.”

在蘇頌文发行的第一本画册《Hong Kong Havoc》（香港浩劫）中，观众可以身处灾难的视角反观这座城市。画册以日记的形式呈现，读者还可以填写书中的空白处来对书中的剧情进行联想。在他的最新绘画小说《Trap》（陷阱）中，So 延续了互动环节，希望尽可能发散读者的想象力，同时也加深了他们对整本书的理解。他说：“你在书中并不能找到结局，读者需要上网搜索，查看一些 Facebook 帖子和新闻报道。我希望能让读者与我的作品进行有意思的互动，引导他们产生更多关于香港的思考。”

Like our stories? Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

 

Instagram: @penso
Facebook: ~/pen.so.10

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Instagram: @penso
Facebook: ~/pen.so.10

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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Distorted Perception 生活扭曲了，活着的意义是什么？

April 7, 2021 2021年4月7日

Reality is what you make of it. But just because everyone around you believes in something doesn’t mean that it’s true. John Lawrence Canto recognizes how media filters the reality in front of us and the growing importance of translating the facts on the ground correctly. Questions about how media changes our understanding of ourselves and the world have been around since the days of the printing press, and it’s a subject that the Filipino artist continues to zero in on today. He even recognizes his own artwork as affecting people’s perceptions of the world and tries to use that tool for the common good.

现实存在于每个人的理解，并不是所有人都相信的事物就是真的。菲律宾艺术家 John Lawrence Canto 认为，大众传播工具往往将现实加上各种滤镜再呈现给人们，反倒让真正的现实变得愈发罕见。自印刷机问世以来，人们就一直在探讨传播工具如何改变人们对自己和世界的理解，而这也是 John 在当下所关注的话题。他甚至认为，自己的艺术作品也会影响观众对世界的看法，并试图通过自己的绘画为人们带来一些积极作用。

Canto’s mixed-media canvases use serigraph printing techniques with distinctive halftone shading, evoking the comic-book aesthetic of the past. His subjects are often warped as if being viewed from a strange angle on a piece of paper and television sets populate many scenes, a symbol for all the different media that populate our lives. Sunday morning comics, ‘70s pop art, and janky photocopiers are all fair game to him. His work is steeped in these vintage techniques and references to different eras of media from the past century. But he uses them to deal with contemporary issues head on.

John 的多媒体混合艺术作品运用了丝网印刷工艺，加上独特的半色调着色，勾兑出老式漫画的风格。他笔下的人物角色看起来以某种奇怪的角度弯曲在纸面上。此外，屏闪的电视机常常画中诸多的场景出现，以此隐喻生活中无处不在的传播工具。周日晨间漫画，70 年代的波普艺术和笨重的影印机都是他常用的素材。他在作品中运用各种老派的绘画技巧，糅合上世纪不同媒体时代的元素，揭示着当代我们所处的社会问题。

Canto revels in CMYK palettes, leaning on these color schemes to evoke imagery of comic-book art and aging adverts. Faces are discolored and colors don’t quite perfectly stay within the fill lines. Everything is saturated and surreal, casting a discomfiting vibe to styles once used to communicate aspirational imagery. The people he depicts are regularly swirling in a way that resembles a cathode-ray tube set struggling to lock onto a wavelength. Other times, his painted characters aren’t even people at all, but crash-test dummies.

John 十分偏爱 CMYK（印刷四分色模式，运用青色、洋红色、黄色和黑色在纸张上实现全彩印刷），这种类型的印刷色总令他回想起漫画书和旧时广告。他的作品中，人物面部往往不做过多着色，画面的颜色分布也并不受线条限制。所有的一切都被深色背景包围，一股浓郁的超现实感从画面中冒出。他笔下的人物仿佛正围绕着超声波长在扭曲地旋转排列。除此之外，面中的人物有时甚至只是撞车测试的假人。

In an era of algorithmic content, Canto captures the anxiety that constantly plagues so many of us. In his art, subjects run around with an unrelenting, nervous energy, no longer guided by the existential answers once offered by religion and philosophy. Instead, his characters are shown blindly chasing make-believe goals and vainly filling their homes with the latest appliances and gadgets.

In Watch Out For The Pothole, they meander aimlessly about, recklessly crashing into objects and themselves. They’re cloned ad infinitum in Too Much Thinking until it’s unclear which is the real character. Even the characters themselves can’t seem to tell who’s who, nor do they care, as they swing construction tools wildly at the fun-house mirrors surrounding them in Dig Ourselves Out Of A Hole. Eventually, they start spiraling uncontrollably, as depicted in Inside This Faulty Machine. This most recent series is colored more darkly than usual because of quarantine and features an out-of-control, circular repetition resembling a zoetrope.

算法时代，John 尝试用作品捕捉困扰许多人那种焦虑情绪。因此，他刻意在作品中营造出某种混乱与紧迫感，是宗教和哲学理论都未能解决或阐述的混沌状态。画中的人们盲目地追逐着不切实际的目标，用新款的电器和设备填满他们的家，也难以填满他们焦虑和虚空的内心世界。

在作品《Watch Out For The Pothole》（当心路坑）中，漫无目的的人彼此徘徊，他们东倒西歪，不停撞向对方或自己；在作品《Too Much Thinking》（想太多）中，人物被无限复制，他们根本无法辨认哪一个才是真生的自己，但倒也显得满不在乎；在另一幅名为《Dig Ourselves Out Of A Hole》（从洞中挖出自己）的作品中，他们对着四周的哈哈镜疯狂地挥舞着建筑工具；最后，在新作《Inside This Faulty Machine》（在故障机器）中，人们开始失控。由于近期的疫情，这个新系列的色调比 John 以往更加灰暗。而整个系列看起来就像一个圆柱形的幻影灯，呈现着人们失控和崩溃的轮回。

The series Signals from the Back Burner finds Canto’s subjects at home, residing in dark rooms with bare walls and ripped curtains, lit only by the ominous glow of their televisions. They’re unable to look directly at their family, friends, or themselves and are instead left gazing into on-screen doppelgangers. Their actual selves are rendered meaningless by interfering signals that contort them into unrecognizable shapes.

在《Signals from the Back Burner》（次要信号）系列中，黑暗的房间下家徒四壁，只有残旧的窗帘，唯一的亮光来自电视机。他们无法直视家人、朋友或他们自己，只能凝视着屏幕上的分身。通过干扰信号，他们被扭曲成无法识别的轮廓，真实的自己因而变得意义全无。

In the Like Humans Are series, partners affectionately embrace their loved ones—one crash-test dummy slumped into a depressing pile on the floor and another hoisted up like a martyr. Whether the dummy represents a blank slate for the partner to project their desires onto or if it symbolizes a person being crushed by the experiments of those in positions of power doesn’t matter. The interpretation is up to you. Or is it?

在《Like Humans Are》（就和人类一样）系列中，情侣们深情拥抱着各自的爱人——有的假人无力地倒在地板上，有的则像烈士一样被高高挂起。这些假人究竟投射了人们内心欲望的白板，又或代表着掌权者手下被压垮的后果，这些都不重要，因为 John 将对作品解析的权利交在了观众手中。

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Website: www.lawrencecanto.com
Instagram: @cantolawrence

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

网站: www.lawrencecanto.com
Instagram: @cantolawrence

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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High-Brow Hentai 饕餮撕漫女

April 2, 2021 2021年4月2日

Renaissance artists looked at the Greco-Roman world as a golden era of art. They strived to match the archetypical work of the ancient greats but heighten it with the techniques and aesthetics of their own time. Similarly, South Korean artist Lee Yunsung looks at the past for inspiration, tapping into both milestones of European art history to compose brightly colored oil, acrylic, and digital paintings. He recreates scenes from classical mythology and the Bible but in a highly sexualized manga style, using all the freedom the genre provides.

“My work is a reconstruction of old narratives into a contemporary expression, but it isn’t easy to define my intention,” he says. “It would be more accurate to say that, out of various attempts, I found ‘odd combinations’ to be a way of creating new meanings.” 

文艺复兴时期的艺术家将希腊罗马的古典艺术视为艺术的黄金时代，致力于达到古典大师的杰作水准，同时以自己时代的新技巧和美学风格进一步升华。同样，韩国艺术家 Lee Yunsung 也从过去找寻灵感，生于 1985 年的他，借鉴了欧洲艺术史上的两大里程碑，创作出色彩鲜艳的油画、丙烯画和数字绘画。他借助漫画的自由无拘，以情色化的漫画风格，重新演绎着古典神话与圣经的场景。

他说：“我的作品旨在以当代的表达方式，重构旧的叙事，但要确定我的意图并不容易。更准确的说法是，通过各种尝试，我发现‘奇怪的组合’是创造新意义的方式。”

Perhaps the most striking example is his early work, The Last Judgement, a digital piece based on Michelangelo’s eponymous fresco at the Vatican. Lee maintains the scale and drama of the original. There’s confusion, viciousness, and joy—the blessed rise to heaven and the damned succumb to hell. However, apart from two male figures and several demons and skeletons, only naked youthful women populate Lee’s version. Jesus is right at the center, but instead of strong and willful, he appears as a foolish-looking boy, overwhelmed by his surroundings.

他最引人注目的作品莫过于早期的一副《最后的审判》（The Last Judgement），这是以米开朗基罗的梵蒂冈同名壁画为原型创作的数字作品。Yunsung 保留了原作的巨大篇幅和戏剧性，在其中充斥着混乱、邪恶和欢乐——受祝福的人升上天堂，受诅咒的则坠入地狱。然而，在 Yunsung 这幅画里，除了两个男性角色和一些恶魔和骷髅，放眼望去，全是赤裸的年轻女性角色。画面正中的男孩是耶稣，但他看起来一点也不强大或高高在上，相反，他看起来只是一个傻乎乎的男孩，被四周的场景弄得惊慌失措。

In another digital work, Lee paints Laocoön and his Sons, an ancient sculpture from the Hellenistic period, also at the Vatican today. In marble, the original depicts the father and his two sons strangled by two serpents sent by the Gods to kill them. Lee replicates the men’s battle and body poses but replaces them with three naked women, also in total despair while fighting with the massive reptiles. The women have their arms amputated in the exact spots where the statue is broken off.

在另一幅数字作品中，Yunsung 画的是古希腊时期的雕塑作品《拉奥孔和他的儿子们》（Laocoön and his Sons），这件大理石雕塑如今也被珍藏于梵蒂冈，描绘了拉奥孔和他的两个儿子被众神派来的巨蛇缠死的画面。Yunsung 画了三个裸体的女子，复刻了原作中父亲与儿子的挣扎和身体姿势，以及与巨蛇缠斗时的绝望，甚至还保留了原作雕像折断的手臂。

Women with mutilated appendages are a recurrent theme in Lee’s works, especially in the series Torso. They gush out venous blood through their open wounds, flowing out and filling the background with kawaii shapes, such as floating stars and hearts. This series was inspired by the damaged marble statues from the ancient world and the ending scene of Ghost in the Shell. The heroine of the latter, cyborg Makoto Kusanagi, has her body dismembered while fighting a machine. She appears naked, ecstatic, and vulnerable—just like Lee’s women. 

肢体残缺的女性是 Yunsung 作品中反复出现的主题，尤其是在《躯干》（Torso）系列中。在他笔下，这些女性敞开的伤口血液喷涌，变成漂浮的星星和心形等可爱形状，填充于背景中。该系列的灵感源自残缺的古典大理石雕像以及 1995 年赛博朋克动画片《攻壳机动队》的结尾场景。在影片里，女主角机械人草薙素子在与机器搏斗时，身体被肢解，看上去赤裸、狂喜又脆弱，正如 Yunsung 笔下的女性。

In the oil painting series Danae, Lee reimagines the story of the supposedly beautiful Greek mythical princess. As legend has it, Danae’s father imprisoned her in a chamber with no doors or windows. Zeus, who desired her, broke into the chamber and impregnated her with Perseus. Upon finding out, Danae’s father locked her and her newborn son inside a wooden chest, casting it into the sea. Lee paints Danae in three different hues—pink, blue, and yellow—and in the various emotional states that correspond to her tribulations. He split the paintings into different polygonal sections as if different containers of a manga page.

He’s also painted other deities and the twelve Olympians as glorified, youthful, and innocent women. In a sudden change of tone, Lee represents the Three Graces—eternally young and lovely goddesses—in achromatic oil on canvas paintings. Conversely, these non-digital paintings bare the pixelate effect of zoomed-in computer images.

在油画系列《达那厄》（Danae）中，Yunsung 重新构想了这位美丽的希腊神话公主的故事。传说达那厄的父亲把她囚禁在一个没有门窗的密室里。爱慕她的宙斯闯进密室，使她受孕并生下了珀尔修斯（Perseus）。达那厄的父亲发现后，把她和刚出生的儿子锁在一个木箱里，扔进了海里。Yunsung 用粉色、蓝色和黄色三种色调描画达那厄，并展现了与她的苦难相对应的不同情感。他按照漫画的分格形式，把整个画面切分成不规则的几个部分。

此外，他还把其他神灵和奥林匹斯十二主神描绘成耀眼、年轻和清纯的女性形象。在创作“美惠三女神”时，Yunsung 一改色彩风格，选择了黑白色调的油画形式，不同的是，这些非数字画作却又呈现出电脑图像放大后的像素化效果。

Lee admittedly borrows elements of moe for his paintings. In manga culture, moe is a rather abstract emotion embedded with protective affection towards sweet and adorable characters—usually young-looking females. Typically, moe-style females appear vulnerable, with large and expressive eyes, abundant and unnaturally colored hair, blushed cheeks, and sensual bodies. Like in Lee’s depictions, they provoke both protective instincts and sexual desire.

But he also borrows from other underground corners of manga culture. Notably, the controversial ero-guro, deemed by many as revolting but arousing sadistic enjoyment in others. The sub-genre blends eroticism with the grotesque and decadent, often involving violence and rape, with an overabundance of blood and dismembered bodies. 

在 Yunsung 成长的年代，1998 年，日本流行文化和互联网风潮席卷韩国，当时还是一名初中生的他也沉迷不已。他说：“我平生第一次买了一台电脑，装好后，我马上连上网，开始浏览日本漫画论坛。”

毕业于中央大学的美术专业的他主修绘画。在那里，他还深入学习西方古典绘画和艺术史。毕业后，他试图探索“古典叙事与当代流行文化的漫画风格之间的极端关系——一种营造相遇、冲突与和谐的结合”。

Yunsung 表示自己创作时借鉴了漫画的萌系（moe）元素。在动漫文化中，“萌”是一种相当抽象的情感，包含着一种对可爱角色（通常为年轻女性角色）的保护欲。通常，萌系风格的女性看起来楚楚可怜，有着生动的大眼睛、夸张的染色发型、红润的脸颊和丰满的身材。正如 Yunsung 笔下的角色，能激起人们的保护本能和性欲。

Lee was born in 1985 in Seoul. He was still in middle school when, in 1998, the dissemination of Japanese pop culture and high-speed internet in South Korea swept him off his feet. “I bought a computer for the first time in my life. After setting it up, I immediately connected to the internet and started browsing through Japanese manga clubs,” he says.

He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Chung-Ang University. There, among other subjects, he studied classical Western paintings and art history intensely. Upon graduation, he sought to explore “the extreme relationship between classical narratives and the comic style of contemporary pop culture—a composition that creates encounters, conflicts, and harmony.” 

与此同时，他还借鉴了一些地下漫画元素，包括极具争议性“ero-guro”（情色）元素。对于这种漫画文化，有的人厌恶反感，但另一些人却从中获得施虐的快感，这种次流派混合了情色与怪诞颓废，还常常涉及暴力和强暴的元素，充斥鲜血淋漓与肢解的身体。

At first glance, Lee’s art could strike as misogynist. However, a more in-depth look reveals that there’s far more to it than tasteless porn for gore fetishists to hang on their walls. It relies on a mixture of styles with roots on his own experience and on the verses of ancient traditions—that are often misogynist themselves—to compose storylines replete with emotional investment. 

Lee’s paintings are shocking explosions of color, but at the same time visceral and cute, tragical and comical. As he creates on the shoulders of giants from ancient and contemporary cultures, the spectrum of his references is boundless. Yet, everything is articulated as two connected ends, defined enough to yield meaning and sufficiently complex to have different interpretations. “I do not intend anything,” he says. “People can see my work differently depending on their background. A work of art is itself a mirror that reflects each viewer’s perception of the object.”

乍看之下，Yunsung 的作品有一种厌女主义。然而，走近细看，他的作品绝非纯粹为满足情色爱好者幻想的肤浅之作。他立足于自身的经历，借鉴经典传统——其中本身就充斥着厌女主义，巧妙糅合多种风格，讲述情感饱满的故事情节。

Yunsung 的绘画如同色彩的爆炸，既赤裸又可爱，是悲剧与喜剧的结合。他站在古往今来的时代巨人肩膀上创作，灵感的来源丰富多样。然而，每一件作品都是两种极端的结合：既清晰传达其意义，又足够复杂，提供不同的解读可能。他说：“我没有既定的意图。每个人都可以根据自己的背景，对我的作品有不同解读。艺术作品本身就是一面镜子，反映着每一位观众对事物的看法。”

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Instagram: @reyunsung

 

Contributors: Tomas Pinheiro, Lucas Tinoco
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Instagram: @reyunsung

 

供稿人: Tomas Pinheiro, Lucas Tinoco
英译中: Olivia Li

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Thailingual 对于说唱，她有不一样的见解

March 29, 2021 2021年3月29日

Rap in Thailand has become very big. It’s big business with big streaming numbers and big personalities. But it’s still young as a culture. There are only so many roads available to success and it’s pretty much a boys’ club. Tsunari wants to help change that. As a mixed-race woman who grew up in different parts of the world and made her name without corporate help, she thinks she’s got a new perspective to offer on rap.

Her music video ”Mula” is immediately clear upon viewing that it’s a banger. But with a Black woman front and center, posing in front of a cold grey city, the whole package isn’t obviously Thai—that is until you realize half of the autotuned lyrics are in fact rapped in Thai. “I call it ‘Thailingual’,” she smiles. “It sounds better than ‘Tinglish’, which is what it’d usually be called.”

说唱音乐是个庞大的产业，这里人才辈出，从不缺少流量和观众。目前，像世界范围内很多地区和国家一样，泰国本土也正在被这股文化旋风席卷。

想要在嘻哈领域取得成功有很多途径。而在这个以男性为主导的说唱世界里，Tsunari 想用自己的努力改变这一观点。混血身份的她，曾混迹于不同国家和地区，在乱战纷争的嘻哈圈子独走龙潭，闯出了自己的一番天地。对于说唱，她有不一样的见解。

第一次观看 Tsunari 的音乐 MV《Mula》，便会令人耳目一新。视频的主角是黑肤色女性，她们与跑车穿梭在灰色的楼宇之间，这样的场景很难让人与泰国联想起来。直到带有泰语歌词的 auto-tune 出现，这才恍然大悟。她笑着说道：“我称之为‘英式泰语’，比平时的泰式英语要更燃一些。”

Listen to select tracks from Tsunari below:

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Tsunari’s music and videos all speak to her unusual background. As the child of a Trinidadian dad and a Thai mom, she moved around a lot as a kid. “My dad went to Thailand on vacation where my mom was a tour guide, and they fell in love,” she says. She spent her school days moving between England, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand. “I grew up in Thailand for about 60 percent of my childhood. In Saudi Arabia, I went to an American international school so the curriculum was American, and there were students from all over. In Thailand, I went to a bilingual private school in Korat that was mostly attended by middle-class kids. The city center there was cool but then twenty minutes out it was very rural, lots of rice fields. The difference between my schools was huge.”

Tsunari 的音乐和 MV 都透露出她不同寻常的背景。父亲来自特立尼达，妈妈是泰国人，小时候他们经常搬家。她说：“老爸最早在泰国旅行，我妈那会儿是他的导游，然后俩人就在一起了。”Tsunari 的妈妈曾在英格兰、沙特阿拉伯和泰国都念过书，她随妈妈在这些地方居住。“我童年一半以上的时间都在泰国度过。在沙特阿拉伯的时候，我在一所美国国际学校读书，老师教的是美国课本，班里的同学来自世界各地。在泰国的时候，我读的是一所在呵叻的双语私立学校，同学大多数都来自中产阶级家庭。距离市中心还行，但是二十分钟路程之外就已经是很乡村的地区，有很多稻田。现在回想起来，这两所学校之间真是千差万别。”

 

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She says school in Thailand as a mixed-race kid was difficult, and she dealt with a lot of bullying: “They saw me as an alien,” she says. “They’d never seen a Black child before. I wouldn’t say they were racist but it was more of a colorist thing. They didn’t understand what they’d never seen before. It was childish bullying, nothing very harmful, just teasing, but it definitely affected my self-confidence.”

Despite feeling like an outsider, Thai music made its mark on Tsunari around this time, and the local music filled her ears everyday on the way to school. “I’m from the suburbs, so we grew up listening to luk thung. My dad loved it too, so I couldn’t avoid it. He even named me after Sunaree Rachasima, a famous Thai country singer,” Tsunari laughs. “I’ve made tracks incorporating these Thai sounds, samples, and instruments and, I hope to do more.”

她提起在泰国上学的经历其实并不容易，自己也曾遭遇霸凌：“他们笑我是外星人，可能因为以前从未见过黑人小孩。我觉得其实他们也不算种族主义者，只是对他们来说，我的肤色很特别。他们不了解自己从未见过的事物。那是小孩子间的欺凌，也没有造成多大的伤害，只是开玩笑，但对我打击也不小。”

尽管在泰国感觉自己像是局外人，但当地音乐依然对 Tsunari 影响很深。每当上学路上，她的耳边总会想起五花八门的当地音乐。“学生时代的我生活在乡下，所以经常会听到 Luk Thung 风格的音乐（Luk Thung 是泰国民谣，通常节奏舒缓，旋律优美，发源于第二次世界大战后）。我爸也超迷这种音乐，我们经常一起听。甚至连我的名字都是由泰国著名的的乡村歌手 Sunaree Rachasima 命名。”Tsunari笑着说，“所以我在创作时会加入了很多泰国元素，例如采样和乐器等等，希望之后可以继续做更多这样的融合。”

After high school, Tsunari moved to London, but while living there, she built a name for herself in Thailand by way of the internet. “London feels like its own country compared to the rest of England, it’s full of people from everywhere,” she says. “There’s also a big Caribbean community here, it’s like a mini-Caribbean. I’ve never been there, so I’m finally learning about this side of my history.”

高中毕业后，Tsunari 搬到伦敦，在那里生活期间，她通过互联网发布自己大量的创作，音乐人生涯就此展开。她说道：“与英格兰其他地区相比，伦敦感觉更像是一个独立的国家。这里文化的包容程度非常高，住着来自世界各地的人，甚至还有一个很大的加勒比海社区坐落在城市的南边，像一个迷你国度。我从未回过非洲，但在伦敦我第一次了解到属于自己根源的文化。”

 

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“Mula” was Tunari’s first solo hit, dropping last year and reaching a million views within a few short months. But she’d been active in the Thai rap scene a couple of years prior to that. She first caught the ear of Daboyway, an OG of the Thai rap scene, who heard one of her cover songs and decided to reach out for a collaboration. They filmed a music video together in 2018 called “Fire,” a pop-infused dancehall track, building on her Caribbean roots. After that initial splash, she uploaded a music video for her remix of “Doo White,” a popular song by Youngohm, one of Thailand’s most famous rappers. He liked her style enough to cosign it and repost it on his feeds for his fanbase. “That song was kind of a test of whether I wanted to release music in Thailand,” she says. “It happened to blow up, so I was like OK, let’s go, let me do this thing!”

Although most artists who find fame in the Thai rap world rely on television competition shows to reach that level, Tsunari prefers avoiding that route. “I wanted to be a singer-songwriter as a kid and went to so many competitions that I always lost,” she grins. “I’m not interested in doing that anymore.”

《Mula》是 Tunari 的首张个人专辑，自去年发行以来，短短几个月内就获得了 100 万次观看人数。但其实早在前几年，她便是泰国说唱圈子的狠角色。起初，她在互联网上的发行引起了当地说唱界大佬 Daboyway 的注意，二人随后展开一系列合作。在 2018 年两人共同拍摄的音乐 MV《Fire》中，流行舞曲元素搅拌着加勒比海风情和盘托出。紧接着，Tunari 又发行了《Doo White》MV，这次由她自己担任混音和制作，并邀请到了泰国著名说唱歌手 Youngohm 共同演绎。后者也同样非常中意她的风格，甚至一度将她的作品发布在自己的页面上，分享给跟多的乐迷。她说：“那是一次试水，决定我是否要留在泰国做音乐。结果真的火了，随后便决定义无反顾地把创作坚持下去。”

和亚洲大部分地区相似，泰国说唱歌手想要混得像样，则需要借助电视选秀节目，但 Tsunari 不想这样做。“我从小就想成为创作歌手，参加过很多比赛，但每次都会输，我已经对这样的比赛不感兴趣了。”她笑着自嘲道。

 

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Tsunari hasn’t been able to visit Thailand since the pandemic broke out and has only been able to connect with her fans online. “Thai commenters tend to be very encouraging,” she says. “But of course I get tons of comparisons, probably because I’m Black and I rap. They’re like, ‘You’re the Nicki Minaj of Thailand!’ It helps them to have a reference to understand who I am.”

She plans on returning to Thailand once travel restrictions loosen up, and her main goal is to give back to the Thai community—especially the girls. Although many Thai pop singers do a rap verse now and then, and some female rappers like Milli have found success recently, women are still not very visible in the Thai rap world. “I feel like there’s a lot more talent out there and I want to help wake people up. Not just in music, but in self-confidence, too. You can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it.”

由于新冠疫情爆发，Tsunari 一直未能回到泰国，只能和粉丝通过网络交流。她说：“泰国粉丝的留言通常是鼓励的话。可能因为我是黑人说唱歌手，也有很多人喜欢拿我去和欧美说唱做比较，他们有人会称我是‘泰国的麻辣鸡（Nicki Minaj）！’，不过这倒是蛮好的也，有助于他们记住我是谁。”

Tsunari 计划在放宽旅行限制后重返泰国，主要是想和泰国的乐迷们来个零距离接触，尤其是当中的女孩子们。现在，虽然嘻哈在泰国越滚越大，而且像 Milli 等泰国女性说唱歌手也备受瞩目，但在泰国说唱圈，女性说唱歌手的存在感仍然不高。她接着说道：“我觉得其实还有很多才华横溢的歌手。我想通过自己的努力让人们意识到，只要专心致志，你可以做自己想做的一切！”

Like our stories? Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

 

Instagram: @tsunariii
Facebook: ~/tsunariii
YouTube: ~/tsunari

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Instagram: @tsunariii
Facebook: ~/tsunariii
YouTube: ~/tsunari

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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The Physical & Metaphysical 拨开表相，是脆弱且叛逆的自己

March 24, 2021 2021年3月24日

A woman dressed in white kneels on a sofa. She tilts her head slightly to the side with an alert expression on her face. Next to her, a half-dressed man sits on a table, staring directly at the viewer. This is a photograph from Almost Naked, a series of works photographer Shen Wei created upon arriving in Minnesota.

“I had just arrived in the States, I had culture shock,” he recalls. “I was not brave enough to explore myself, so I looked inwards through other people.” These intimate portraits are of everyday Americans in their homes and neighborhoods, in repose or suspended in a moment of daily routines. Some of the photographed subjects are fully dressed, some are fully exposed. Their gaze into the camera is firm and unambiguous. We are looking at them as they are looking at us. There is simultaneously a sense of candidness and vulnerability.

身着白色蕾丝边裙子的女子跪坐在沙发上，她头微微转向眼神的另一侧，露出稍稍警惕的神情。在她旁边，半裸男子佝偻在桌子的一边，双眼直勾勾地看着镜头。这是摄影师沈玮的《近乎赤裸》（Almost Naked）系列照片之一，是他到达明尼苏达州后所拍摄的作品。“美国和中国完全不同，带给我文化上很大冲击。那时候的我还没有足够勇气去探索自己，所以先把目光望向了身边的人”他回忆道。

沈玮往往希望通过作品来呈现普通美国人的日常，场景发生在房间或是街上。照片中，人物肖像好像没有任何距离感，令人倍感亲切。他们中有人穿着整齐，有人则全身赤裸，坚定不移地向镜头坦述心声。观众好像能与照片中的角色用眼神交流。但同时，一阵阵率真、脆弱的气氛从相片中缓缓升起。

Bodies are sites of power and introspection in Shen’s work. As one of the primary mediums through which he explores human sentiments, representations of the body are a dominant theme in his oeuvre. After acclimating to life in the States, Shen gradually turned  his lens on himself both as the perceived other and as the agent of his identity. He placed himself in caves, the Ganges, homes, untamed nature, and manicured gardens. Attempting to dive into who he is across locales of spirituality, domesticity, the urban and the rural, he treats his own body as the vessel of expressions of the most fundamental human emotions: fear, nostalgia, disorientation, uncertainty, and so on. Over a span of a decade, Shen gathered this collection of self-portraits, forming the series I Miss You Already.

在沈玮的作品里，力量与自省都寄托于人的体内。作为他探索人类情感的主要媒介之一，身体是他作品的中心。在适应了美国的生活之后，沈玮开始逐渐将镜头转向自己。以旁人的视角观察这个可以代表自己身份的角色。

沈玮让身体置身于洞穴、恒河、房屋、大自然和修剪整齐的花园等种种场景中。试图在精神层面、家庭生活、城市和农村等不同语境和环境下的自己。他将自己的身体当作表达人类基本情感的工具：恐惧、怀旧、迷失、未知等等。十年间，沈玮将这些“自拍”作品整理为《Miss You Already（已经想念你）》系列。

In one photograph, he can be seen lying on a bed covered by fuchsia-colored floral sheets in an old Shanghainese apartment. Shen grew up in one of the numerous old lilong neighborhoods in downtown Shanghai, where space was so scarce that the families of each building shared a communal kitchen and bathroom. The artist mentioned that the heat and staleness of the room he posed in reminded him of his childhood home. 

照片上，沈玮赤裸全身地躺在老上海公寓里，床单上缝绣着紫红色花卉图案，描述着时代的痕迹。他打小在上海的弄堂里长大，在这个寸土寸金的城市，一栋楼里往往是家家户户共用一个公用厨房和浴室。沈玮说当时拍照这张照片的时候，房间里破旧的家具散出浓郁的闷热气，让他一下子想起小时候的家。

Also related to his childhood in Shanghai is the self-portrait titled Earthly, in which he revisits his longing for nature. Growing up in the narrow lanes of Shanghai, nature seemed far out of reach. Taking inspiration from Henri Rousseau’s The Dream (1910), Shen found a pond surrounded by blossoms and lush green to bathe himself in. “I stayed in the water for a good while,” he says. “There were lots of insects around and the temperature was a bit low. I didn’t start shooting until I felt I was one with nature.”

另一幅与他在上海童年息息相关的作品是自拍肖像《Earthly》，该作品诠释了他一直以来对大自然的向往。对于上海狭窄的同堂而言，大自然总是遥不可及。他以亨利·卢梭（Henri Rousseau）的《梦境》（The Dream）（1910）为灵感，找到一块池塘，这里四周环绕花朵和植被。“那次我在水中呆了很久。周围虫子很多，也蛮冷的。直到我觉得自己与大自然融为一体，才肯开始拍摄。” 他说道。

Using himself as the subject of his works, Shen Wei gestures towards introspection and self-discovery. As the artist puts it, “making these self-portraits is an experience of emotional release, a way to express my desire for openness and possibility, as well as a step towards learning acceptance”. These images are his instrument for self-reflection. By shedding away all the protective layers, Shen’s naked body is that of a newborn, an act of vulnerability and rebellion.

Gradually, his exploration of the self went beyond the physical world of palpable reality into his subconsciousness. Intrigued by the mysterious and the inexplicable in his dreams, Shen started to search for the mythical from scenarios of the quotidian. The resulting photographs are what make up the series Between Blossoms, a documentation of the fantastical inscrutability in his voyage across diverse geographies and imaginary landscapes.

随后，沈玮以自己为创作对象进一步探索。正如他所说：“将镜头对准自己是一种情感上的释放。能够满足我坦白的声音，也是接纳与学习的过程。”这些照片是他通往内心的有力道具。当外在的躯壳被层层扒去，真正的自我变得清晰透明，以此寓意新生，既脆弱又叛逆。

此后，他对自我的探索逐渐超越可触摸的现实世界，延伸到潜意识领域。那些神秘与奇妙的梦境令他着迷，于是，沈玮开始从日常生活的场景中寻找如梦似幻的画面，并拍摄了《盛开之间》（Between Blossoms）系列作品，用镜头记录着他徘徊于现实世界与虚构境地里，那些难以捉摸的奇妙时刻。

Caught between reality and reverie, the images in Between Blossoms often resemble a fictional backdrop against which a story is set to unfold. A Glass of Water is one such example. Surrounded by neatly organized books, the reflection of a red plastic cup takes center stage. The filled cup and its reflection in the mirror suggest a human presence preceding this moment. Light shot through the carmine plastic, its translucence, intensified by the smoothness of the mirror, lends the scene a certain surreal-ness. In Table for Two, a glance from a window unexpectedly turned voyeuristic as the camera focuses on a table set for two. In the foreground, green window frames are juxtaposed with the pink table napkins shaped into an origami of cauldrons. Behind the table, the background is an expanse of impenetrable darkness. It’s simultaneously an image of suspense and that of atmospheric forlornness.

《盛开之间》系列作品便是介于现实与幻想之间，当现实的事物被梦幻着色，为观众缓缓引述故事的开端。在其中一幅名为《A Glass of Water（杯中水）》的作品中，规整的老式书架旁边，梳妆镜中的深红色塑料杯子成为焦点。装满水的杯子和镜中的映像暗示着此处之前曾有人来过。穿透胭脂红塑料的光线，在平滑的镜子映衬下，显得更晶莹剔透，令整个场景多了一层超现实感。在另一幅作品《Table for Two（双人桌）》中，昏暗的灯光下窗内淡蓝色的双人桌格外引人注目；虽看似随意地一瞥，却意外地让人有种偷窥的错觉。前景的绿色窗框与考究的粉红色餐巾相互映衬，桌子后面的背景则是无尽的黑暗。整张照片令人浮想连连，同时一股愁绪孕育而生。

The artist’s search for the mythical evolved over time into a more metaphysical dimension. Inspired by classical Chinese paintings where large swathes of emptiness are treated as solid space, Shen Wei started transforming the empty space in his photographs into containers of qi. Qi is considered a vital force that flows throughout any living entity. It is a form of energy that underpins the philosophy of Chinese medicine but also regarded as an essential element that can create certain ambiance in the living environment. For Shen, qi freely circulates in his images,  functioning as intermissions in between vignettes of a narrative in his latest body of work, Broken Sleeves.

慢慢地，沈玮对神秘感的探索逐渐演变为形而上学的维度。受到中国古典绘画的影响，大量幻想的元素围绕在现实空间里。画面中，那些不可名状的光晕、或是叙事手段被他称之为 “气”。作为中国古代中医哲学的基础，“气” 被视为是在流动在生命体间的某种力量，也是在生命在空间内创造氛围的基本元素。沈玮让 “气” 在其照片中自由流动，在他的最新作品系列《Broken Sleeve（断袖）》中，不同叙事的片段被这股“气”串连起来。

Broken Sleeves borrows from the story of an ancient Chinese emperor whose lover fell asleep on his sleeve. To not wake the lover from his dreams, the emperor cut off his sleeves. Shen dressed himself in a manner of historical characters in costume dramas. Wearing an imperial dragon robe, he plays the role of the emperor, but a ball gag in his mouth rendering the character out of place. In another image, he becomes the lover, reclining on a bed with elaborate wood carvings and embroidered blush curtains. In yet another, he time travels to assume the personality of a triad boss from China’s Republican era, dressed in a long mandarin robe and a scholar fan, also with the same gag as that of the emperor. Threading these personas together is the trajectory of qi as if pinpointing the landmarks of the protagonist’s journey across time and space. It assumes the form of a glowing red cube of light that impregnated the pavilion—its throbbing heart in the midst of flourishing vegetation whose verdancy is reduced to monochrome (Pavilion). It goes on to be the ruby-colored light traveling behind an arched door on an old street with chipped teal paint (Doorway (Glow)).

《断袖》借鉴自中国西汉王朝，汉哀帝与御史董恭之子董贤的故事：某日，汉哀帝的情人董贤枕靠在他的衣袖上入睡，为了不让他从梦中醒来，汉哀帝割断了衣袖。这段讲述男男之恋的故事后来被用来描述男性之间的相互爱慕的情节。

照片中，沈玮穿上戏曲龙袍，饰演帝王角色，情趣口球被塞进嘴里；另一张照片里，他又变成故事中帝王的情人，床边布满精美木雕和刺绣帘子；随后，他又摇身一变，穿越到民国时期，身穿长袍，手握纸扇。将这些不同角色串连起来的，便是“气”的轨迹，仿佛在标注角色穿越时空的旅程。该系列的其他作品中，“气”是亭子中发光的红色立方体，如同在繁茂树丛中跳动的心脏，周围的树木都被处理成单调的黑白色（《Pavilion（亭子）》）；并随即化作一道红光，穿过老街和拱门（《Doorway (月洞门道)》）。

There is a distinct classicism in Shen Wei’s oeuvre. The compositions of his photographs call to mind those of Flemish still lifes, his preference for natural light instead of studio lighting results in a palette close to Old Master paintings. When an image’s center of attention rests on a human form, the contours of the body with all its built-up tensions reflect an influence from Hellenistic sculptures. It is intriguing to see how the artist gleans both from classical Chinese paintings and Greco-Roman traditions of forms in his image making. Shen Wei is unique in combining the two and imbues it with a diaristic style of storytelling. Going through his works is like reading a poem or flipping through someone’s old journal, a montage of his reconnaissance of the self situated in the imagined and the familiar.

不难发现，沈玮的作品的确伴有中国古典主义美学色彩，而其作品的构图又令人想起一些西方早期油画风格，例如佛兰德斯画派（Flemish）中的静物画。他偏爱自然光而绝非摄影棚照明，这让作品色调与经典油画逼近。在以人为主题的照片中，身体的轮廓及张力又带些许希腊雕塑的意味。他出人意料地同时从中国古典绘画与传统的希腊罗马艺术形式汲取灵感，这是他独树一帜之处，并赋予其作品日记体般的叙事方式，十分引人入胜。翻阅他的作品，就仿佛在读一首诗或某人的旧日记，是一套属于他自己的“蒙太奇”。

Like our stories? Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

 

Website: www.shenwei.studio
Instagram: @shenweiartist

 

Contributor: Ashley Shen
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
Images Courtesy of Shen Wei & Flowers Gallery 

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

网站: www.shenwei.studio
Instagram: @shenweiartist

 

供稿人: Ashley Shen
英译中: Olivia Li
图片由 沈玮 与 弗劳尔斯画廊 提供

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Artisanal Sneakers 旧鞋好去处，缝线好功夫

March 19, 2021 2021年3月19日

The customized sneakers of JunAle bring Japanese textile traditions to Western sneaker culture, adding a level of individuality that’s rare in the corporate-led industry. The amount of investment it takes to manufacture sneakers creates a high hurdle for alternatives to the giant global brands with their endless supply chains and massive advertising war chests. But the Osakan designer uses his mending skills and patchwork stylings to create unique footwear that shrugs off the hype cycle.

日本大阪设计师 Jun Ale 设计的运动鞋大部分都取自市面上常见的鞋款，不过通过日本传统布艺的加持，为大企业所导向的球鞋产业带来难得一见的个性元素。由于运动鞋的生产需要巨额投资，独立品牌往往难以与有着庞大供应链和广告投入的全球巨头相提并论。不过，Jun Ale 利用自己的修补与拼贴技术，创造出独一无二的风格，尝试打破运动鞋行业的一贯规则，令人眼前一亮！

Sitting in his small studio surrounded by piles of fabric scraps, JuneAle, who’s real name is June Sugimae, is focused on his work, sewing a paisley patch onto a lightly used pair of navy blue trainers. His design repertoire is heavy on indigo and denim, which are combined in layered patterns with contrasting stitches applied liberally. Oftentimes he’ll simply use stitches to create new patterns, covering the entire existing surface of a pair of sneakers with exposed threads. The Nike Air Footscape in his hands already looks a bit like the vintage tabi shoes on the table in front of him—albeit without the split toes—so he builds on that connection to guide his new design. “I’ve always been interested in bringing new life to old things in ways that will promote greater posterity,” he says. “I also believe that incorporating new elements into traditional designs can create a new and greater worth that is even perhaps more relevant.”

His studio is an extension of that belief, a converted printing press near the historic Tokaido Road that runs between Osaka and Tokyo. “I’ve always wanted to do my design work somewhere with a sense of place and history,” Sugimae says.

在 Jun 不大的工作室里，四下堆满了零散面料，他正专注地埋头工作，将佩斯利贴片（paisley patch）缝到一对几乎全新的海军蓝色球鞋上。Jun 的大部分设计主要采用靛蓝染色和牛仔布，层层叠搭图案，并通过大量对比色的缝线贯穿细节。他擅用缝线来完成图案轮廓，由裸露的针线点缀整个鞋面。

你看，Nike Air Footscape 在他的改造之后，看上去和桌子上的复古 Tabi 分趾鞋已有几分相像，只不过少了分趾的造型。他常常在不同球鞋之间建立联系，雕琢出属于自己的风格。他说：“我一直喜欢重新演绎传统，让过去的鞋子焕发出新的生命力。我相信，将新元素融入传统设计能带来完全不同的价值表现，也让设计变得更有趣。”

而他的工作室本身就是这一信念的完美诠释。其前身是一间印刷厂，坐落于大阪和东京之间别具历史意义的东海道（Tokaido）附近。Jun 说：“这算是我的一个心愿，希望能在历史和文化气息浓厚的空间里创作。”

Sugimae studied fashion and tailoring in Japan and London and has over ten years of experience designing sportswear, but he only started upcycling about seven years ago. He also makes clothing using upcycled fabrics. He sources his materials from antique stores in the countryside and some local marketplaces in Osaka and Tokyo.

Jun 曾在日本和伦敦学习时装和裁缝，拥有超过十年的运动服饰经验。大约在七年前，他便开始专注于旧物的改造设计。由他一手打造原创的品牌 JunAle 也有对回收面料的再加工，其中用到的一些设计原材料均来自日本古着店以及大阪、东京的市集。

His sneakers are about 60 percent upcycled, depending on the order from a customer or his own personal inspiration. He mostly works with Nikes and slip-on Vans, sometimes using a fresh new pair from the box. “When I work on used sneakers, I try to mend holes, rips, and breaks with sashiko hand stitches,” Sugimae explains. “It has good chemistry, so I prefer used sneakers rather than new ones.” This traditional stitching from the 1600s is decorative as well as functional, so in addition to repairing them, he’s giving them a renewed sense of style.

在 Jun 设计的球鞋中，有一半以上都来自旧物回收。一些设计来自客户订单需求；另外一些则出自他的个人灵感。其中大多数是 Nike 和 Vans，新旧鞋参半。Jun 解释说：“二手运动鞋有很多岁月的痕迹，我尽量用刺子秀工艺（Sashiko）来缝补破洞和裂痕。出来的效果很好，所以相比于新鞋，我更喜欢用二手运动鞋创作。”这种起源于 1600 年代传统缝线工艺既具装饰性又实用，在修复鞋子之外，还能赋予鞋子一股新鲜的活力。

The process of customizing a pair of sneakers has different steps that depend on the type of sneaker Sugimae is working with. If he’s designing something for a customer, they’ll either send him a pair or ask him to pick something up locally, then they’ll discuss general design points and agree on an overall direction. Next, he figures out which materials match well with the sneakers. “This can be measured in harmony or contrast,” he explains. From there, materials and threading are applied one at a time. “Even if an application may appear jarring on its own, taken as an element in the greater picture, a cohesive artistic message can be relayed.” Each pair takes about a month or two to create, and he says his designs can last indefinitely since it’s usually the soles that take the most wear and tear and they can be replaced as many times as the owner wants.

不同类型的运动鞋，在设计时也需要 “对症下药”。如果有客户邀请设计球鞋，客户一般会事先把鞋子寄给他，然后一起讨论整体的设计方式，并达成共识。设计之初，他需要先确定哪些材料适合这双运动鞋。他解释说：“我要考虑所选材料是否与球鞋本身的设计想搭配；或形成强烈的对比反差。”在选择完成之后，他才能将材料和缝线同时添加到运动鞋表面。“即使单独一个的拼贴元素看起来格格不入，但放到整体的设计上，就能传达出某个一致的艺术讯息。”每双鞋的制作大约需要一两个月的时间。Jun 说自己改造的鞋子可以穿很久，因为通常承受磨损的只是鞋底，而他设计的鞋底是可以不断更换的。

The particular style of upcycling that Sugimae practices is rooted in a Japanese tradition called boro, a process of mending and patchworking scraps to create a whole new piece of material. Boro was mainly used by the poor as an economic way to make clothes last longer and the materials were often dyed with indigo. But it was largely abandoned with the mass production of clothing in the 1900s. “I love a good and compelling folklore story that can be told without the use of the written word,” he smiles. “The emotions in such a work can reveal something that a text-based historical record may betray. Boro follows this thought line. The materials used invariably have a story and resulting symbolism. Through the discipline’s techniques, even poverty and shame can be elevated while still retaining purity, and this can be done all without words.”

其实“回收并改造”的灵感最早源于日本的民间传统——褴褛（Boro），指的是通过缝缝补补打造新衣服的传统拼布文化和工艺。以前的穷人通过褴褛来延长衣服的使用寿命，并往往会对面料进行靛蓝染色处理。后来到了二十世纪，大批量机器生产的出现导致这一种传统在很大程度上被人们遗忘。“不同于文字，还有更多方式可以深刻地讲述民间传统，就比如现在我在做的事情，带给人文字无法传达的感受。褴褛工艺正是如此。每一块材料的背后总有一段故事及其意义。藉由这种工艺，即使是原本代表贫苦与卑微的旧物也能得到升华，同时保持纯净，这一切的实现并不需借助任何文字，用心感受就好了。”

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Website: www.junale.life
Instagram: @junale

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Photographer: Riku Yamashita
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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Instagram: @junale

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
摄影师: Riku Yamashita
英译中: Olivia Li

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Spiraling Thoughts 光的作用是为了投射阴影

March 15, 2021 2021年3月15日

Reality isn’t black and white, but in a world lacking color, finding the light becomes all the more important. This is the philosophy that the works of John Marin orbit around. In his grayscale portraits, he broaches difficult issues such as alienation and spiraling thoughts but does so without sacrificing the dignity of the individuals who he’s chosen for his canvases. In fact, his art looks to empower them.

现实并非黑白两色。但在去掉色彩的世界，寻找光线变得更加重要，这正是菲律宾艺术家 John Marin 的核心创作理念。在他的黑白肖像作品中，他大胆探讨疏离与负面情绪的难题，但依然保持了人物的尊严。实际上，他的艺术作品旨在赋予人物力量。

The Filipino artist stripped all color from his paintings 11 years ago as a self-imposed challenge, and ended up realizing his works were more striking and dramatic without them. Using oil paints and pastels, Marin renders realistic portraits encircled by abstract shapes and text, all of which appear with rough, weathered textures. The people he portrays are based on photographs he’s taken. “They’re friends and strangers,” he says. “I choose images based on feeling.”

11 年前，他挑战自己尝试在创作时摒弃所有色彩。这次的尝试却让他意识到，没有色彩的作品反而更引人注目，更具戏剧性。John 使用油画颜料和粉彩铅笔绘画写实的肖像，再在四周添加抽象的形状和文字，并刻意营造粗糙的纹理。他笔下的人物都是以他拍摄的人像照片为原型创作的。他说：“这些人有的是朋友，有的是陌生人，我都是按着感觉来挑选照片的。”

In the recent series of paintings, Come Home, Marin explores the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, which spread exponentially for months around Manila despite one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, recently seeing a new surge nearing record levels. The Philippines has ranked among the highest number of cases in Southeast Asia. “This new normal is hard for everyone,” he says. “This unfamiliar environment is alienating and uncomfortable. We need to adapt.” None of this is literal in the work; it’s more of a gut feeling that he transfers to the canvas.

But feelings of alienation are nothing new for him. It’s something he’s dealt with throughout his life and career, being shunned in school and the art world. “Being different reminds me that I’m unique.” Adapting doesn’t mean conforming, being something that he’s not. He respects people’s differences but also seeks out what we have in common.

在最新的作品系列《回家》（Come Home）中，John 深入探讨了疫情所引发的不确定性。尽管马尼拉也实施了漫长而严格的封禁措施，但疫情仍在短短数月之内迅速蔓延，最近感染人数又出现了接近历史最高水平的飙升。菲律宾也是东南亚确诊人数最多的国家之一。他说：“这种新常态对每个人来说都很难。前所未有的情况让人们相互疏远，人人惶恐不安。我们需要去适应这样的新常态。”虽然他并未在作品直截了当地描画任何疫情的场景，但现实的情绪却弥漫于每幅画中。

然而，对 John 而言，疏离感并不陌生，毕竟这是他一直以来在生活和职业生涯中不断在处理的问题，从学校到艺术界，他总是感觉自己被排斥在外。“与众不同也就代表我是独一无二的。”适应并不意味着顺从，也不意味着假装成为他人。他尊重每个人的差异，但也想要寻求人与人之间的共同点。

Marin’s use of Chinese characters in this series serves dual purposes, creating a layer of distance for Filipino viewers unfamiliar with the language while also forcing them to appreciate it on a different level by relating with the texture and mood of the paintings. The script is painted directly over faces, resembling the ubiquitous graffiti of an urban metropolis. The Chinese text that appears all come from Encountering Sorrow by Chinese poet Qu Yuan. “Overcoming loneliness is the biggest challenge of every individual. Most of my works depict this feeling as commonly shared by many people despite their differences.”

John 在该系列中使用汉字创作有两个目的：一方面是让不熟悉中文的菲律宾观众产生距离感，另一方面是迫使观众通过画面的纹理与情绪，从另一个层面去欣赏作品。而直接涂写于人物脸上的文字，也令人联想到城市中无处不在的涂鸦。他摘录的中文词句源自屈原的《离骚》。“克服孤独感是每个人最大的挑战。我的大多数作品都旨在描绘出这种感觉。这是不同的人之间的共同感受。”

The layered marks that often hover over his portraits are a continuation of Marin’s previous works. In these paintings, circular rings nearly fill the entire canvas, spiraling outward from the center of the composition where the subjects’ eyes peer out in a penetrating stare. “The eyes are the window to the soul,” he says. “Everything we perceive in this material world passes through the eyes.” The swirling lines, painted in an improvised fashion and in a loose visual style, represent the ripple of thoughts and ideas radiating outward, one creating another in undying expansion.

The textures and shades of Marin’s work evoke a dark aura, but after a moment’s gaze, it’s not hard to find the warmth within them. Just because light’s presence in the work serves mainly to cast deep shadows doesn’t mean it’s less significant than the darkness. The ripples hide the people within them almost entirely but the eyes are all that’s necessary. And while his new works depict subjects in a sort of definite pause they don’t feel beaten. His work acknowledges the difficulties of life while refusing to let go of hope in humankind.

而层叠于肖像之上的标记，则是对 John 以往作品的延续。在这些画作中，圆环几乎占据整块画布，从画面中心向外盘旋，而人物的双眼则从中向外凝视。他说：“眼睛是灵魂的窗口。我们正是透过双眼来观察外面的世界。”旋涡线条呈现出即兴、涣散的视觉风格，寓意像波纹般向外扩散的想法，一个接一个地不断衍生丰富。

John 作品的纹理与色调黯淡、质感稠郁，但凝视片刻后，你总能从中发现一丝暖意。光的主要作用是为了投射深沉的阴影，但这并不意味着光的地位不如阴影重要。涟漪的波纹几乎完全隐藏了其中的人物，但却掩盖不了他们的双眼。此外，虽然他在新作品中描画了人物的定格瞬间，但他们看上去却并未被生活打败。他的作品承认生活的困难，但拒绝放弃希望。

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Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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Instagram: @alongside.maya

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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Substance & Aesthetics 特效是一种无所顾忌的自在

March 12, 2021 2021年3月12日

 

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Mention of CGI often brings to mind blockbusters depicting planetary threats and epic battles, but could these graphical innovations be used for something a bit more personal? Science fiction and comic-book adaptations are great, but how could this new form of moving image be harnessed for more introspective or insightful means? This is a topic of deep reflection for filmmaker Andrew Thomas Huang, whose work tells quiet stories elevated by powerful imagery.

He’s well known for making work that breaks down these boundaries, using painterly motifs and digital tools. Music videos for the likes of  Bjork, FKA Twigs, and Serpentwithfeet burst with computer art in new and creative ways. Short films such as Flesh Nest—which features a couple entwined in each other’s arms as a new, artificial world grows around them, using their skin as fertile grounds—test our perception of what filmmaking can be.

提起 CGI 特效，总会令人联想到各种星球灾难和史诗级大片，而这些创新图像技术是否也适用于更偏向个人层面的创作？用 CGI 来表现科幻片和漫画改编电影其效果固然惊人，但这类动态图像技术如何用来表现令人深思或洞察幽微的故事情节呢？这是电影制作人 Andrew Thomas Huang 所思考的问题，目前，他正尝试用 CGI 特效点缀生活中平凡的故事。

Andrew 的作品向来具有突破性，尤其擅长运用绘画功底与数字工具进行创作。他曾经为 Bjork、FKA Twigs 和 Serpentwithfeet 所创作的音乐视频，无不是令人耳目一新的创意数字艺术盛宴。像他的一部名叫《Flesh Nest》的短片中，一对拥吻的情侣正在不断为人工智能世界提供养料，使得他们不断繁衍壮大。影片中，Andrew 用极富想象力的画面诠释爱的伟大。而在他所创作的短片中，这样的例子还不胜枚举，不断挑战着观众对电影制作的认知。

After working in a major production studio and realizing that commercial filmmaking would never do it for him, he began exploring alternatives. “When Trump was elected in 2016 I slowly began to turn my lens toward more personal subject matter,” he says.

Huang is a gay Chinese-American who grew up in Los Angeles, where his father emigrated to from Hong Kong. His mother’s parents are also immigrants, having moved to the States from the Toisan region after World War II. And so, the election of a president who campaigned largely on hateful rhetoric and an anti-immigration platform forced him to look inwards. “Reflecting on my heritage and family history began to take priority in my life and I began asking myself why I couldn’t use the same tools and visual language that I use in larger film productions and music videos to talk about my personal story.”

曾在一家大型制片公司上班的他，不过随后逐渐意识到，商业电影制作模式并不适合自己。2016 年，特朗普当选美国总统之后，他开始渐渐把镜头对准了更个人的角度。

Andrew 是同性恋美籍华裔，自小在洛杉矶长大，父亲是来自香港的移民，姥爷则最早是二次世界大战后从台山搬来美国。当一位充满仇恨言论又主张反移民的总统上位，这迫使他更加听从自己内心的声音。“反思我的文化根源和家族史成了我日常里重要的部分；我开始扪心自问，为什么不能用这些视觉语言来讲述带有自身文化属性的故事呢？”

 

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Huang was raised on films and television featuring almost no Asian characters, and even fewer non-white stories about gay people. Telling his own story meant he could reach others who similarly grew up without representation in media. He believes putting more types of faces on screen is central to a more equitable society: “How can young people dream of certain paths if they don’t see themselves reflected in a given industry? We have to give under-represented artists the gate keys, and we have to showcase their work.”

This newfound dedication didn’t come with an abandon of visual-forward aesthetics however. “Visuals will always be the first instinct for me; I’ve always liked things that took me out of reality, that were brazenly artificial with unapologetic style,” Huang says. “I feel like sometimes in the indie narrative world, there’s a dominance of social realism that often ignores style.”

在 Andrew 小时候看过的电影和电视中，亚洲面孔几乎为零，关于非白人的同性恋故事就更是凤毛菱角了。通过讲述自己的故事，他想要引起那些与他有着相似经历、一样被大众化媒体所忽略人群的共鸣。他认为，要实现一个更平等的社会，就必须在屏幕上呈现更多元化的面孔，“如果年轻人在自己的行业都找不到存在感，他们又如何会敢在这条道路上继续追寻梦想呢？我们应该给予少数群体的艺术家机会，并多去展示他们的作品。”

即便有了全新的创作方向，Andrew 也并未放弃自己一贯的视觉语言。他说：“视觉永远是我的第一本能；我很喜欢能令我跳脱出现实的东西，毫不掩饰的人工特效是一种无所顾忌的自在。我觉得有时候在独立电影世界中，人们太关注社会现实，反而忽略了影像的风格。”

 

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Huang pays meticulous attention to every visual detail, from styling, makeup, and custom jewelry to choreography, lighting, and, of course, visual effects. Anything that will add to the mood of the story is piled into the frame, and the result is vibrant and explosive, challenging notions that style must be compromised for narrative. His visual leanings are perhaps best exemplified by the music videos he’s created, and he relishes this type of collaboration. But he also bristles at its limits at times, complaining that “in the fashion, commercial and music video world, style is priority, often at the expense of substance.”

从造型、妆容、定制首饰到编舞、照明和视觉效果，Andrew 对每一个视觉细节都严格把关。让所有营造故事氛围的元素交叠于同一幅画面中，造就了爆炸式、惊艳的视觉体验。同时，这些画面正在向传统的固有观念发起冲击：视觉不必让位于叙事。他所创作的音乐 MV 很好地诠释了他的视觉倾向，他喜欢这种合作方式，但同时又抱怨道：“在创作时装、广告和音乐 MV 时，风格往往是优先事项，并常常以牺牲概念性作为代价。”

Due to his reputation, people often expect maximalist visuals, a sensory onslaught of images. His more subtle works have received mixed reactions from those clutching the purse strings, much to his dismay. “Mixed media and visual effects mean that my films are inherently expensive, which is frustrating sometimes,” he says. “I wish I could be one of those people that could just make a film with a camera, a script, and an actor, but the bells and whistles of visual storytelling are what I’m known for. Often when I’ve tried more minimal approaches, people look at the work and get confused.”

He thinks the best visual filmmaking requires narrative substance, and with back-to-back crises across the world this past year alone, he’s slowing down to focus on the stories he believes are necessary to tell. His first entry from this new perspective comes in the coming-of-age story of a teen girl told through a dream-like lens of kaleidoscopic colors and vintage styling. He hopes to turn this into a feature-length project. It builds on previous work like the tale of a young man working at his family’s restaurant who meets a deity and embarks on his first gay experience in a mystic otherworld. His piece about a brooklyn flex dancer interacting with a dark, mysterious force might be considered a precursor to both of these.

“Once images go out into the world they can do good or they can inflict harm,” Huang says. “So I think I’ve been more sensitive lately to the cost and consequences of putting work out there. Our time together on this planet is limited and given the tumultuous political and economic environment we’re in, I want to strive for emotional clarity with my work.”

由于他一向以极繁主义的风格著称，导致观众对他天花乱坠的视觉元素产生了期待惯性。相较之下，那些内敛的作品却口碑普通，这让 Andrew 感到十分沮丧。“使用混合媒体和视觉特效就意味着高昂的拍摄成本，这一点会令我焦虑。我希望可以成为一个只用相机、剧本和演员就拍成影片的人。但我一向以华丽的视觉叙事而著称，有时候，当我尝试创作更简单的作品时，人们就会觉得无法理解。”他表示道。

不过 Andrew 也依然认为，叙事对于影片是必不可少的。在过去一年间，随着各种危机在全球接二连三地蔓延，他决定放慢创作脚步，专注于值得讲述的故事上面。期间，他创作过一部关于女孩青春期的故事，作品中充满了梦幻的万花筒色彩和复古风格画面。他希望有机会能将这部作品制作成电影正片的长度。

而在这部影片之前，还有一部关于年轻男子在餐馆工作时发生的故事。男子遇到一位神灵，在神秘的异世界开始了自己的第一次同性恋体验。这部名为《兔儿神》的影片让更多国内人认识了 Andrew。此外，他还拍摄过一位布鲁克林折骨舞舞者与神秘的黑暗力量互动的故事，这部影片可以看作是上述两部作品的前篇。

Andrew 说：“当影片作品公诸于世后，它们可以带来好的影响，也可能造成伤害。所以，我现在会更加小心自己发表的作品所带来的影响和后果。我们存在于地球上的时间是有限的，鉴于我们当前动荡的政治和经济环境，我希望在自己的作品中，传达出清晰明确的情感。”

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Website: www.andrewthomashuang.com
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Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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网站: www.andrewthomashuang.com
Instagram: @andrewthomashuang
Vimeo: ~/andrewthomashuang

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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The Art of Teleportation 问: 人类怎样实现瞬间转移？

March 5, 2021 2021年3月5日

Black holes are fascinating. No one knows precisely what they are. A theory from science-fiction writers is that they’re a spacetime portal, a shortcut in the universe, teleporting whatever crosses them into another dimension. Beyond what lies past them, there’s also a mystery with whatever is left behind.

31-year-old Thai artist Kantapon Metheekul, also known as Gongkan, finds comfort in the idea of these holes being passages to a superior dimension. It’s a concept he explores in several projects, the most notable being his paintings featuring cartoon-like figures emerging placidly from magical portals. He named this style “Teleport Art.”

黑洞拥有令人着迷的力量，没有人知道它到底是什么，在科幻小说家的笔下，黑洞是穿越时空的门户，是宇宙中的任意门，穿过黑洞，就能到达另一个时空。除了黑洞后面的世界神秘莫测，穿越后所遗留下来的世界也同样令人好奇。

31 岁的泰国艺术家 Kantapon Metheekul（又名 Gongkan）将黑洞视为通往理想世界的通道，从中寻求慰藉。他在多个艺术项目中探索着这一个概念，其中最引人注目的莫过于一系列平静地穿过神奇黑洞的卡通人物作品，他称之为“Teleport”（瞬间转移）艺术。

The term teleportation relates to the idea of a magical passage—a transformative and healing force exuding a message of hope—and it’s almost invariably present in his work. In one of his favorite paintings, he depicts different harmful instruments, such as a gun, a missile, and a hand grenade being transmuted into benign objects, such as a pencil, a pear, and a flower, by way of a portal. The piece also shows changing sentiments, an insulting gesture replaced by a hand sign for love, a standoff into an embrace.

“瞬间转移”这个词令人联想到奇妙的通道，代表着转变和治愈的力量，传递给人们希望的信息，同时也是贯穿 Gongkan 作品的主题元素。在他最喜欢的一幅作品中，各种枪支、导弹和手榴弹等危险的工具在穿过黑洞后，变成了铅笔、梨子和花朵等人畜无害的物体。除此之外，这幅作品还有着情感的变化，粗鲁的手势变成代表爱的手势，对峙变成了拥抱。

Even if they often have a human shape, Gongkan’s characters are otherworldly. They appear detached, not aloof or cold but assured and calm. We can see this in his portrayal of a young man with serene eyes rising from a portal that’s simultaneously the sky and the sea. Gongkan’s paintings are atmospheric, almost like a dream sequence, borrowing elements from Magrittean surrealism.

Gongkan 笔下的角色虽然有着人类的外形，却又有点超凡脱俗。他们看上去超然尘外，但又非高高在上或冷眼旁观，而呈现出一派平和与冷静。譬如在其中一幅作品中，神色不惊的年轻男子正穿过既是天空又是大海的黑洞。他的画作有一种空灵感，如同一帧帧的梦境，借鉴着雷内·马格里特式的超现实主义的元素。

He started painting in this style in New York City, where he spent three years working as a creative in advertising. There, he felt lonely and suffered the emotional toll of trying to achieve the Big Apple dream. “It all started in New York when I was feeling stressed and depressed,” he recalls. “I drew a simple picture for self-encouragement: a man emerging from another dimension. It seemed that things could get better if I only could find a solution in my imaginary world.”

He wanted to share the relief he felt, and he began painting different murals in the city with similar styles. Gongkan also made stickers of his black-hole voyagers, slapping them throughout New York, gaining a reputation in street-art circles.

Gongkan 曾在纽约从事三年的广告创意工作，在此期间，他开创了这种绘画风格。在纽约生活的时候，他时常感到孤单寂寞，在追逐自己的“美国梦”的路上屡受挫折。他回忆说：“之所以有这个创意，是因为当时在纽约的生活充满了压力和沮丧。为了鼓励自己，我给自己画了一幅简单的画：一个人从一个时空穿梭到另一个时空。创意和想象的世界给了我逃脱的出口，让生活感觉不那么糟糕。”

Gongkan 想向其他人分享这种舒缓压力的方式，于是，他开始在纽约的墙壁上创作相似风格的壁画。此外，他还制作了一些黑洞旅行者贴纸，张贴于纽约街头，并因此在当地的街头艺术界赢得了关注。

Gongkan moved back to Bangkok in 2019. His homeland opened up a new set of subjects for his freshly defined style, starting with his memories of his turbulent youth as an outlier. “I was mocked and bullied during my childhood for being gay,” he recalls. “Also, my family didn’t understand why I became a Christian while they are Buddhists. I wondered who defines what is right or wrong to pay respect to, or if I have to be in hell for being gay, even if I did nothing wrong.”

It was a lonely childhood, but he believes that his solitude helped him cultivate an aptitude for visual communication. Like most kids growing up in the 1990s, he gorged on TV cartoons, being particularly fascinated by shows drawn with simple lines and shapes. He would go beyond just watching them but conjured elaborate plots and background stories for the characters outside of the shows, outlining a fantastical world in his mind.

2019 年，Gongkan 回到曼谷，在这里，他的新艺术风格迎来了一系列的新主题，首先是他自己动荡的青春时期里的记忆。他回忆说：“小的时候，我常常因为是同志而被嘲弄和欺负。我的家人也不理解，明明他们都是佛教徒，为什么我偏偏会成为基督徒。那时候我很想知道到底是谁来定义对与错，是不是因为我是同性恋就必须下地狱，即使我没有做错什么。”

他的童年是孤独的，但他认为，正是这种孤独，帮助他培养了用视觉去交流的能力。和 1990 年代成长的大多数孩子一样，他沉迷于电视动画片，尤其是那些线条简单的动画作品。他不仅是单纯的观看，还会为片中的角色构想细致的情节和背景故事，在自己脑海里打造一个异想世界。

Although his favorite medium is painting, Gongkan’s work spans illustration, sculpture, photomontages, videos, and augmented reality. He welcomes the challenge of multi-disciplinarity every time, holding a renewed curiosity of what his overarching theme may look like in different forms. He also often combines his teleport art with the work of other artists and collaborates with different brands. In 2020, Gongkan collaborated with pop singer Troye Sivan in the Thai lyrics video for “Take Yourself Home.”

虽然绘画是他最喜欢的创作媒介，但 Gongkan 的作品涵盖了插画、雕塑、合成照片、视频和增强现实。他喜欢挑战跨界的艺术创作，渴望于探索同一主题在不同艺术形式的表现。此外，他还经常将自己这种“任意门”艺术和其他艺术家的作品结合，和不同的品牌联手合作。2020 年，Gongkan 携手流行歌手 Troye Sivan，制作了《Take Yourself Home》这首歌的泰语歌词 MV。

 

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He certainly doesn’t shy away from admitting that most of his works reflect his life experiences. Still, they also reflect the world around him, notably the struggles salient in Thai society, such as inequality, LGBTQ issues, and corruption. But this is hardly presented in an explicit manner. Gongkan’s works have a reflecting capacity. Whether representing an escape from social, family, or career pressures, or from the overwhelming injustices of life, or even merely a much-needed moment of peace from the daily fight; his paintings touch viewers subliminally. 

“My work is not about cute cartoons—It’s about freedom and extended hope to anyone who’s suffering,” Gongkan says. “The black hole means a dimensional gate that enables us to escape from this cruel world into a better one.”

Gongkan 坦承大部分的作品都来源于他自身的经历，同时也反映着周围的现实世界，尤其是泰国社会中那些突显的问题，例如不平等、LGBTQ 和腐败的问题，只是并非以一种直白的方式。他的作品拥有映射的能力：无论是逃避社会、家庭或职业压力，摆脱生活不公，或者是在艰难的日常生活里寻找一刻的和平，他的作品能够潜移默化地触动观众。

他说：“我的作品并不在于展示可爱的卡通漫画，而在于表达一种自由，为遭受苦难的人们带来希望。黑洞是一个穿梭时空的任意门，让人们得以逃离残酷的世界，进入一个更美好的世界。”

His teleportation daydreams came to him as an escape when the feeling of ineptitude haunted him. As he invites us to step through the same portal, whatever is beyond it or behind it becomes subjective, unique to us. What matters is that—real or surreal—another world is possible.

每当现实让他感到无能为力时，他的“任意门”艺术就是他的出口。他带领观众穿越着同一个黑洞，但对于黑洞所连接的两个世界，则取决于每个人的主观，每一个都是独一无二的。最重要的是告诉人们，在现实或超现实的世界之外，还会存在有另一个世界。

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Website: www.gongkanstudio.com
Instagram: @gongkan_
Facebook: ~/gongkanstudio

 

Contributor: Tomas Pinheiro
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

网站: www.gongkanstudio.com
Instagram: @gongkan_
Facebook: ~/gongkanstudio

 

供稿人: Tomas Pinheiro
英译中: Olivia Li

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