Loy Luo
Suspending
2015 -
Ning Space -Beijing
Pursuing the Answer of the Tao in the Suspended State
By Ning Zhang
Loy Luo is a sensitive female artist who likes to put her thinking cap on. She is in herself an entity of contradictions and we may feel her inner struggles, her leaps in thinking and her entanglements. Her personality shows multiple contrary sides, and she feels herself being torn, which is amply showed her artworks. She likes to use acrylic because it has water character, which she considers Chinese; and to use oil paint because of its oily character, which is seen as Western. At the same time, she blends the two together through force. She says, "My ideal is to build a bridge between the West and the East. I have to do this or else I will feel bad, as I very much like Chinese culture and am infatuated with Western culture. So in a way, I feel obliged.
Luo is a person who likes questioning, whether they are directed towards other people or at herself. She has been studying and thinking about philosophy and exploring the inner spiritual world. Her artwork is a pursuit of the Tao, a process of enlightenment. This can be seen in her paintings, Untitled Memories series and Suspending series, and in her series of sculptures entitled Poem. In her works, feelings and thinking are one and the same, while senses and rationality are unified. When she paints, she looks for inspiration through using the paints and changing layers and layers, until she finds an ideal images. In reality, she feels suspended, probably because she fell into a hole by accident when she went swimming in her childhood. She could neither rise up to the surface nor sink to the bottom, and had to see yellow water bubbles flowing by. That near-death experience is the origin of her thinking behind the suspended state of life. Her Suspending series is an experssion of suspended state of her life experiences, through dreamlike hues and exploratory strokes.
It is meaningful to embark on an artistic pursuit of the Tao. Inspired artworks are powerful . Our spiritual growth is a process of studying , thinking, questioning and seeking the truth. Sometimes, Our effort is aimless, uncertain and suspended. I think we will find the right answer if we continuously investigate the truth with our own wisdom independently and ceaselessly. I like the dedication Luo has shown to art, and admire her spiritual thinking and expressions conveyed through her paintings. I think that her art creation is a process of self-discovery and self-reflection, as weill as a process of seeking the truth and answering her inner questions.
Installation View
Artist Statement
Void lingers in void, abundance vanishes inside abundance ——Transcend the Dilemma of Counterpoint.
By Loy Luo
I once spend over a year trying to emulate the way Gilles Deleuze interprets Francis Bacon in his book, “Logic of Sense”. I applied Nietzsche’s “Will of Power” to the interpretation of an artist and her art. In my judgment, the life of the artist resembles a fickle burning desire. I think that Nietzsche’s philosophy is equivalent to the tenet of her art. But what about the equivalent of mine? For many years, I have been trying to watch myself with the eyes of a bystander, continually looking for an answer to and experimenting with the notion of “Who am I?”, as if I had been deprived of the soul. Am I a fireball burning, as if duty-bound? I am not that strong. Am I selfcleansing water in this earthly world? I am not that calm. I agree to the transcending nature of Chinese art as expressed in Xu Fuguan’s writing. However, rising to the state of nature may seem egoistic and it is becoming of me to keep striving and to adhere to the Daoist thinking of inaction when I quit this world, without regret or feeling obliged? I think that all art practices are about transcending the spiritual constraints, and ridding of the secular burdens that our physical bodies are laden with, only what happens after the transcendence and how enlightened one becomes vary case by case.
Personally, I agree more with the Christian-style contemporary transcendence practice. It acknowledges the legitimacy of idolatry rejections, i.e. the return to an imperceptible omnipresent God. Thus it ushers in the daring experiment of spirits going beyond the material world without severing its connection with the human world, where it resides in the hearts. Men are chosen by God, and are a passage from materialism to spirituality.
Thanks to Pythagoras and Plato, the barriers between western religion and philosophy, and between the secular world and paradise, had been bridged. The division came later on. Arguing vehemently, Plato revealed whether art could transcend the earthly barrier and reach the spiritual realm. Later, in subsequent debates about varied art theories, art has always striven to reveal the truth through images, until imitation art failed in revealing the truth of the world. Oriental art realized earlier than its western counterpart that you cannot judge a book by its cover. However, its realization didn’t go far enough. The truth is, through the proclamation of Abstractionism, the challenge posed by Suprematism and the adventure of Conceptualism, the pure dance of free ideas has become a passion for serious artists. Malevich, Klein, Tàpies, Rothko, were soul dancers good at dancing in the sky, radiating breathtaking beauty and brilliance from within, which has energy in great abundance. Religion, philosophy, and art have not until recently made the drift towards or are moving to the glory of the Holy Trinity.
According to classical Chinese aesthetics and art ethos, all of these dilemmas will be resolved through spiritual transcendence. Nobody knows where we may go from there but the vibrant spiritual wings know where the wind blows.
Untitled Memory 1, 2014
Mixed Media, 90x70cm
Ning Space Collected
"I am positive that in the center of the void, as in a human heart, there is a burning fire.” Re-reading Klein’s book, I am even more convinced that one’s art is his religion or philosophy. What one has inside shows on the canvas, and shapes the style. An artist’s character, changing or not, is something deeply engraved. In all ages, great masters have their own fantastic temperaments, which are not made. The temperament comes from within and is a barometer of how tolerant you are of the world, whether you go with or against the tide of life. It comes from your understanding of what it means to be a human being.
Perhaps my psychological traits, my being a Gemini or my AB blood type means that I will wear the shackles of contradiction throughout my life. That plus the two cultures that have nourished me --- and caught between the opposites of earth vs ocean, risk-taking vs caution, openness vs constraints, bright versus claustrophobic, calmness vs fierceness --- my life will be spent waging wars against my other self. Personality determines fate. I think that it is my fate to mitigate the seemingly impossible contradictions inside myself and integrate them into my art.
Void lingers in void; while abundance vanishes inside abundance. This poetic atmosphere is the atmosphere of painting, and the ultimate illustration of life and universe. East and West, philosophy and religion, human and the universe, the flesh and the spirit, void and abundance, existence and disappearance… like the ancient totem of Taiji, the two poles move against each other, circulate, encroach upon and permeate each other, repel and alienate each other. When art reaches such a stage, life will become indescribably expansive, fabulous and worthwhile.
Artist Statement (Void lingers in void, abundance vanishes inside abundance.PDF)
Opening View
Theory Explore
The Historical Logic and Inner Philosophy of Abstract Art Writer: Loy Luo | Dec 22, 2015 | Source: Artron Art Net 1，Editor’s Note: I have interacted with Loy Luo for many years. Her unique perspective and her tireless dedication to intellectual inquiry have always inspired me..... Luo told me that for many years she has been trying to examine the internal logic of abstract art through the lens of the convergence between art history and the history of philosophy. She believes that, at its core, the birth of abstract art is the inevitable outcome of Western art history’s pursuit of "truth"—a natural progression that emerged when figurative art's quest for "representational truth" reached an impasse. In her view, the "truth" of the figurative era was an "objectivity" derived from mimetic representation under the guidance of scientific positivism. When this extreme positivist demand collapsed within the field of art, artists—almost as if guided by fate—began to recall the ancient notion of “truth in ideas,” thereby initiating a turn away from the "truth of appearances" in search of a "truer truth"—that of abstraction. The long-standing and deeply rooted metaphysical tradition of Western philosophy, originating in Plato’s theory of forms, provided abstract artists of the early 20th century and beyond with a robust theoretical foundation, which ultimately enabled abstract art to gain widespread public acceptance.
Poem-Withered Leaves, 2014
Mixed Media, 90x70cm
Ning Space Collected
Exhibited Works
