One Divides into Two

作品賞析

In his work One Divides into Two, the artist Chen Chi-Wen makes an analogy between emotion and disease and exploring how the two can spread among individuals. The person on the left side of the painting has normal skin color and thick hair, in contrast with the person on the right side, who has a gray skin color and no hair. There is a white smoke or mist between the two, which may be breath or saliva. The healthy person touches it only lightly with his fingertips, and the disease begins to spread from them down into his hand. The outbreak of the COVID pandemic made the artist begin to think that the body is not only the carrier of the soul, but also the vehicle by which disease can spread to another human. The title, besides expressing separation, also refers to the process of cell division, by which life continues. Chen Chi-wen is adept at using gouache to create his art. He repeatedly layers the paint and then rubs it with sandpaper, a process resembling the various encounters and separations in life.