2006 - Cognition in China

"The dream unites the grossest contradictions, permits impossibilities, sets aside the knowledge that influences us by day, and exposes us as ethically and morally obtuse." Sigmund Freud

While doing a Masters Degree in 2005, I made a lot of Chinese friends and became interested in their stories of rapid change going on in their home country. The next year I went to live in China with the intention of experiencing that change first hand. I was expecting that sociological or Chinese issues would become the focus of my art, but it seems universal issues concerning interpersonal relationships became my focus. Many of my paintings look very carnal on first reading, but emotionally I feel they are quite puritan.

Perhaps my focus on interpersonal relationships stemmed from the fact that I was teaching Chinese professors preparing to go on foreign exchange programs. These professors came from disciplines such as rocket science, art, psychology, sociology, journalism, economics and engineering. For these students, the theory of the disciplines was more important than Chinese cultural symbols such as Tai Chi, Kung Fu, Peking Duck, or the Great Wall of China. Naturally, as I talked about the theories with them, especially with the psychology lecturers, I spent more time thinking about the subjects than cultural clichés.

In addition to being focussed on academic theories, many of the Chinese I associated with had emotional priorities directed towards interpersonal relationships. Some of these emotional priorities stemmed from the importance that “guanxi” played in Chinese culture, but they also stemmed from the fact that many marriages in China occurred for reasons other than love between two people. It was the side-effects of loveless marriages that I found most interesting to consider artistically.

In Freudian language, I started using art as a problem-solving schematic for the subconscious sexual desires that shaped human behaviour. My art conveyed warnings, sublimated desires, visualised rewards, and showed a conscience. The art accessed the desires of the id (subconscious) to form the ego (conscious), which in turn had problem solving ability to keep the id happy. Furthermore, the art developed a superego. The superego was composed of a conscience, which was an internalisation of punishments and warnings, as well an ego ideal, which was derived from rewards and role models. In more simple language, the painting visualised the conflict between desire and morality. The art shows the desire, but constrains that desire wth warnings and morality.

Well, that's the explanation I came up with. The more I explained my art with such scientific language, the more I realised that perhaps I was spending too much time around professors and was trying to be cerebral. In truth, I just let my mind wander and imagery flowed out. While I may try to argue that the imagery I created was in response to the Chinese I was around, perhaps it was really in response to something going on in my own mind.

Ai Shuaishuai

Adam Meets Eve

Devoured

Man Coerces Woman to Have Sex Using Reasons Other than Her Own Desire

Man and Menopause

Breast Inspection

Climax of Man