Like most people, in my life I have faced pressures and challenges from work, marriage,
raising children, looking after my elderly parents, and from changes in society.
Creative work has been an outlet for me to address the emotions all of this stirs up.
In shooting the "Vision of Taiwan" series, I used a strong flash to create multiple momentary bursts of light on my own face, each flash like a clearing away of emotion. With the accumulation of light, this "uncontrolled" approach created a "surplus" of light, making faces look "blind." Such an aesthetic effect carries with it a subtext of the contradictions between our environment and our aesthetics.
Facing society and one's environment with an emotionless, cool face like a "human billboard" is like withdrawing oneself from reality and living in a vacuum, looking at one's surroundings but not seeing them.
As well as exploring lifestyles and the environments in which they exist, I have also attempted to branch out, using the revolutionary spirit of documentary photography to investigate my relationship with our environment while also representing my thoughts on modern Taiwan's cultural landscape, and using this to better understand my own lifestyle and environment.
The creative process begins from the individual's psyche, but is also a response to the real spaces of the "outside" world. By injecting deliberate "method" into these "documentary" photographs, they are redefined and transformed into images of unreality or surreality.
While "Vision of Taiwan," with its combination of documentary perceptiveness and critical surrealism may have a sense of hopelessness and pessimism regarding Taiwan, I personally maintain faith in the idea that we can make life better. It is this idea that has been, for many years, the core creative tenet of my own work.
Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall
"Second Southern Freeway" betelnut stand