Trapped in a Crowd Painting

Chung, Chao-Yi is an independent Taiwanese artist who currently lives in Edinburgh, UK. Chung describes his painting and artistic style as ’Automatic Drawing’, characterised by its spontaneity. He proceeds without any preparation or preconceived composition. In his paintings, he visualises his subconsciousness and life experiences, turning them into twisted lines, graphical fragments and recognisable symbols. All of the artistic fragments in the painting can immediately be linked with counterparts in Chung’s memories or life experiences, in turn finding analogues in the audience’s memories, triggering certain emotions such as joy, sadness, fear and sexual desire. The expression of Chung’s ‘Automatic Drawing’ is aleatoric and random, and the paintings are full of overlapping imagery and fractal shapes, melting and recombining. “Automatic drawing” which is an artistic technique for the artists to represent subconscious, life experiences, memories and dreams. By merging the techniques of Automatic drawing, the idea of improvisation and the influence of cultural background, Chung has created a particular spontaneous drawing style to represent who he is. The concept of these paintings is adapted from Jung's theory- “Automatic writing”, then rebuilt in the style of drawing. “Automatic Drawing” which represents subconscious, life experiences, memories and dreams by using dynamic drawing style. Meanwhile, the outside stimulations will be deconstructed and recombined as abstract constructions. Therefore, symbols are shown as symbolic representations with random, surreal and organic appearance. ​ ‘I draw automatically.’ said Chung. Chung’s practice of Automatic Drawing is an approach he uses to release the diffuse personal emotions which have been stored in the subconsciousness. The drawing process allows the hand to move ‘randomly and spontaneously’ across the canvas. Chung expresses what emerges from the subconscious to conscious attention by using various materials whether he is familiar with them or not. With practice, a personal technique will develop, and it allows drawing to be done without conscious self-censorship. Regarding the application of material, Chung mixes acrylic paints and Chinese calligraphy ink into the paintings, merging the realistic style of oil painting and the sophisticated lines of Chinese ink painting so that contact between Eastern and Western culture can be represented dynamically in Chung’s Automatic drawing.