Desolation

作品賞析

WANG Huo-Pen, a skilled oil painter, majored in western art and was once the artistic director of China Times. DESOLATE is an artistic experimentation on integrating texts with a painting. The uneven texture generated by a semi-automatic technique has created an uneven surface that resembles the broken crust of a desolate planet. The Chinese character of Serenity (靜) hovers above, half-hidden, heightening the destitute silence. A line from a classical poetry Shanzhong Xijing Guan Chaojin (山中習靜觀朝槿) [I meditate in the mountains to appreciate the morning blossoms] as well as desolate2003diing have been deliberately displayed in mirror writing at the center and lower parts of the canvas. The viewer, unable to read these texts naturally, is forced to directly confront the work and its tattered imagery and meaningless text. Combined with the lonely compass, all these elements hint to the fact that direction, realism, and knowledge have lost their meaning upon this desolated world, and all that remains is a sense of bleakness and isolation.