《Still life with fruit, flowers, and a human face》 Sculpture

1989 born in Taiwan. My recent works have focused on appropriating the concepts and esthetic forms of vanitas, using the moralizing spirit of vanitas paintings to reflect my understanding of contemporary society. Vanitas style is developed by combining still life painting, popular in the Netherlands in the 17th century, with the concept of Memento mori (“remember (that you have) to die”), originated in the Middle Ages. In vanitas, the objects depicted in still life paintings symbolize and convey the message that earthly fame and fortune are as fleeting as passing clouds, warning people that the pleasures of life will come to an end and that death is inevitable. Ecclesiastes 1:2 of the Old Testament: “Vanity of vanities,” saith the Preacher. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” The vanitas style often uses arranged still life objects to suggest the fragility and transience of life to the viewer. These objects include rotting fruit, flowers symbolizing aging, leftover cake, and toppled wine cups, with the human skull, symbolizing death, being the most representative. I collected these models and used the same technique to create wax molds and deliberately flatten them before casting them into metal. Through this complex process, the rotten fruit and toppled tableware depicted in paintings are transformed into near-everlasting material of bronze, allowing time to pause at the moment of decay for eternity. By juxtaposing these metal castings with flowers or glass bubbles symbolizing the frailty and transience of life and arranging these compositions onto walnut furniture used in everyday living, my works symbolize the transient and empty nature of life, which is hidden within everyday existence. I attempt to create a sense of dislocation and illusion, hoping that my compositions are not clearly identifiable and could be read as theater in progress, a still life, or the stage after a show has ended, thereby encompassing more perspectives and psychological directions. I also incorporate elements of the theater of the absurd, attempting to reference the splendor of contemporary life and its ultimate end and die, transforming into a speck of dust to be metabolized over time. Only this hollow still life is eternal, and all we can do is embrace the void at the end and endure it.