Some might consider collage art to be an artform with many unavoidable limitations and restrictions due to the medium’s use of pre-existing imagery, but that hasn’t stopped Raintree1969 from bringing to life the seemingly creatively boundless universes and creatures of his imagination. The Taiwanese visual artist’s surreal, Dali-esque worlds are filled with fantastically freakish monstrosities and strange deformities, all of which are presented in his signature retro aesthetic. The type of material he prefers to source from – vintage magazines, especially ones from the ’80s and ’90s – can be partially credited for his distinctive aesthetic. “I love Flaunt magazine,” he says. “They had several beautifully designed issues that are still very memorable to me.”
有些人认为拼贴艺术是一种充满限制性的艺术形式，因为需要使用现已存在的图像作为媒介，但这并没有阻止台湾视觉艺术家Raintree1969生动地创作出一个蕴藏无限创意的宇宙以及天马行空式的幻想之物。在他达利式的超现实世界中，充满了各式幻想怪物和怪奇形体，并以他独特的复古美学呈现出来。他最喜欢从二手杂志（特别是80年代和90年代的杂志）中搜集创作素材，这也可能是他形成自己独特的复古风格的原因之一。他说：“我现在还蛮喜欢《Flaunt》杂志，记得有几期杂志包装得很漂亮。”
“I watched a lot of superhero cartoons as a child, and whenever I saw the monsters get defeated, I would always wonder what happened to them,” Raintree recalls. “Do they have children or a family waiting for them at home?” Elaborating on this unconventional line of thought, he explains that it’s not exactly a sense of sympathy for the underdogs, but rather he considers it a pity that these characters just disappear so unceremoniously. His love of antagonists and baddies is made even more evident in his My top favorite 50 fictional characters series, which is chock-full of popular villains such as the Riddler, Dracula, and Frankenstein. “Over time, I grew quite fond these unconventional and unusual creatures.”
Raintree回忆说：“小时候看超人英雄卡通，每回妖怪被打败后，就匆匆带过，那时我都会想后来妖怪们怎么样了，是否也有家人小孩等着他呢? ”他解释这种奇怪的想法并不是对弱势怜悯，而是总觉得花了很多时间金钱打造的怪物们，就这样结束掉满可惜的。他对坏蛋和反派角色的热爱在《我最喜欢的50个虚构角色》（My top favorite 50 fictional characters）系列中尤为明显，这一系列展现了众多著名的超级反派，比如“谜语人”（Riddler），吸血鬼“德古拉”（Dracula）和科学怪人“弗兰肯斯坦（Frankenstein）。“我于是就渐渐研究和迷恋上这些比较属于非正常的物种上。”
Besides the odd creatures and an unchanging aesthetic being unifying traits of his work, certain motifs make appearances again and again in Raintree’s world, more specifically, a sense of isolation and searching. The main way that Raintree presents these themes are through his characters, who are often depicted with slumped shoulders, hunched over, or in an otherwise equally vulnerable posture. At times, these themes feel like they tie into a larger story around identity; his characters are humanoid, yet Frankenstein-like, an amalgamation of different and unusual parts, often placed in an alien surrounding, seemingly out of place. This is perhaps part of what makes his work so intriguing – these monsters remind us who we are, as creatures who are made up of the sum of our experiences, desperate in our collective desire to fit in and belong in a fast-moving world that may, at times, feel like a strangely unfamiliar place.
怪奇的生物和一致的美学风格是他作品的特色，此外，Raintree在自己的创意世界中，还会经常探索“寻找”和“孤独”这两个主题。Raintree 主要通过图像中的角色来诠释这些主题，这些角色的肩膀往往朝下耷拉着，蜷缩着身体或是有着其它看上去同样脆弱的姿势。有时候，这些主题也会令人联想到有关身份认同的更大的主题; 他所创作的角色都是类人生物，却像弗兰肯斯坦一样，通过想像，将不寻常的不同元素结合在一起。这些角色常常置身于格格不入的奇异环境当中。而这也可能是他的作品如此引人入胜的原因之一。这些怪物提醒着我们到底是谁——我们在本质上是由自己的经验组成的生物，我们都有一个共同愿望：迫切地想要融入和适应一个快速变化的世界，而这个世界有时候又令人感到十分的陌生。
