From Painting to Wall-sculpture the case of Wang Zhiyuan

Introduction

From 1975 to 1984, I was trained in an art educational system based on the social realistic painting school in China. In late 1989, I came to Australia where I was forced to confront a totally changed environment in terms of language, traditions and culture. My art creation was disrupted and fundamentally challenged. In 1995, 1996 and 2000, I won three successive grants from the Australia Council for the Arts. And in May 2000, ten years after I moved here, my seven pieces of wall-sculptures were displayed at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and also collected by the gallery.

This paper sets out to trace the process of my art development in Australia, focusing on an analysis of how my art strategy has evolved in stages in my new circumstances as an immigrant, how I have positioned my cultural identity, and who and what theories have had a deep impact upon me in the evolution of my art strategy. The importance of establishing such a strategy to confront my new social and cultural environment is explained with the help of the 'Complexity' theory. My research paper is to be elaborated in two historical periods. 

Chapter 1: My Art Educational Background in China and its Impact on my Art Creation My art education in China from 1975 to 1984 and the art environment in Beijing throughout the 1980s in relation to my creativity is outlined and serves as a context for subsequent developments. 

Chapter 2: Emigration and my Art When I emigrated to Australia in late 1989, the completely different language and culture made me lose my bearings and blocked my artistic creativity. These questions presented themselves, e.g., how to deal with my realistic painting techniques in this unfamiliar cultural environment? How did Jeff Koons and postmodern theories influence or inspire me? How did I redefine my cultural identity? As a result, I created a series of oil works 'Beauties captured in Time'. The process of my development takes into account my speculation on these questions. 

Chapter 3: My Creation of a New Art Form as Means of Survival My life experience in Australia and my readings in and on contemporary art began to influence my thinking. The theories of 'Complexity' and Taoism made me acutely aware of the importance of having my own art strategy. In this chapter, I explore the characteristics of my strategy and the reasons why I chose to work in a new genre, the wall-sculpture. In 1997, I created ten pieces of wall-sculpture work on plywood. How were they created and what was their significance in my artistic development? 

Chapter 4: Changes in the Material and Theme In 1998, I changed the material of my work by using metal and made thirty-seven pieces of wall-sculpture work. In 1999, I enrolled into SCA as a postgraduate, and this has resulted in my creating forty pieces of carved relief wall-sculpture work on MDF. This series of work was produced on campus during 2000. 

Chapter 5: Conclusion I conclude with a summary of the impact of "Complexity" theory and "Taoism" on my wall-sculpture' work. Facing the speedy advancement of Information Technology industry in the 21st century, the future is very uncertain for trends in the real world and all existing forms of art. Some people have given the future the name 'Post Human Era'. No matter what it is called, the most obvious characteristics of the coming age is an increased speed of fluidity in concepts. 

* The title 'From Painting to Wall-sculpture' may seem conservative. During the 20th century, the visual arts have witnessed a great variety of forms in all artistic trends. This paper is based on my most current deliberation towards the circumstances described above, or, in other words, "a set of rules demonstrating both openness and closure". Using this set of rules as my art strategy, I have created several series of works. This strategy is the central point for this paper. 

Chapter 1: My Art Education Background in China and Its Impact on My Art Creation After communism dominated the mainland of China in 1949, the purpose of art education was to serve politics as a tool. Therefore, an art education as such was based on social realism. This meant that artists should use such techniques and skills acquired in their training to make their art easily understood by ordinary people and that the themes of their art works were in accordance with the political needs of the time. From then on art development in China had nothing to do with the various art movements of the Western world. Such an art education system was a copy of the system of the former Soviet Union. Ninety percent of the courses were designed for sketching and included still life, landscape and nude. I received my preliminary training as an artist by entering the School of Art and Design in Tianjin in 1975. I graduated in 1978, and from 1980 to 1984, I was enrolled as an undergraduate at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 

Beijing. 

From 1966 to 1976, the Cultural Revolution, a politically radical movement brought chaos to all areas of intellectual and artistic life in China. In the arts, all creative activities were dominated by a blend of dogmatic revolutionary idealism and revolutionary realism. What typified cultural life for 800 million Chinese were the eight Revolutionary Model Operas, the only works they were allowed to read or perform during that ten-year period.[ Revolutionary Model Operas: Taking the Bandit's Stronghold, On the Docks, Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, Sparks Amid the Reeds, the Red Lantern and Dragon River Appraisal Two revolutionary model ballets: the Red Detachment of Women and the White-haired Girl] During my art studies from 1975 to 1984, China was in a transitional period from the ending of the Cultural Revolution to the adopting of an open door policy for reforms. In the Chinese art circles of the late 1970s, the well-known statement of realism by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), that artists should paint what they see was popular and considered as avant-garde. In 1980, "Tibetan Series", eight pieces of oil painting by Chen Danqing (b. 1953), a postgraduate student of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing created a stir in Chinese art circles. Today when we review that series of paintings, it is clear that it tried to express aspects of ordinary Tibetan life through Chen's own eyes by using the techniques of classical and realist schools of painting.[ Gao Minglu, Inside Out: New Chinese Art, exhibition catalogue, University of California Press Ltd., Los Angeles, p. 197 ] But right after ten years of brain washing during the Cultural Revolution, 

1Revolutionary Model Operas: Taking the Bandit's Stronghold, On the Docks, Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, Sparks Amid the Reeds, the
Red Lantern and Dragon River Appraisal Two revolutionary model ballets: the Red Detachment of Women and the White-haired Girl  

2Gao Minglu, Inside Out: New Chinese Art, exhibition catalogue, University of California Press Ltd., Los Angeles, p. 197  

those small-scale oil works seemed to help both artists and the public to rectify what had been mistakenly assumed to be representations of artists' own perceptions. As a result, artists were able to re-learn how to use their own eyes to view the existing world. In 1978 when I graduated from the School of Art and Design, I was assigned to the One Hundred Flowers Art Publishing House of Tianjin (Tianjin Baihua Wenyi Chubanshe), where I worked as an art editor until 1980.[ In the mainland China until 1980s, all the graduates from college are provided with a job, but any individual graduate is of no freedom to make her or his own choice for jobs. ] During those two years, I read a large number of books from the library there, which luckily had not been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. My reading list included the literature of other countries that had been translated into Chinese before 1966, as well as excellent realist literature of China produced from the1920s to 40s, and some philosophical books. Through my reading, I developed a substantial knowledge and understanding of both of Western and Chinese literature. The novels of Western writers such as Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883), Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910), and Ernest Hemingway (1899- 1961) had greatly influenced my thinking, as did the writings of Lu Xun (1881-1936), Yu Dafu (1896-1945), Lao She (1899-1966), and Zhao shuli (1908-1970). What impressed me in these writers were their realism and humanism. Their influence is demonstrated in my work "Wild Flower" (Figure one, 30x30cm), a woodcut print created in 1982, when I was a second-year undergraduate at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In the following year, "Wild Flower" received the Gold Prize award in print-making of the Central Academy of Fine Arts after being exhibited at their annual students' joint exhibition. 

3In the mainland China until 1980s, all the graduates from college are provided with a job, but any individual graduate is of no freedom to
make her or his own choice for jobs.  

In 1982, I also created four pieces of work "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn" and "Winter" (Figure two, 40 x 80 cm/each). These four works are oil on oil-cardboard, but since I was enrolled in the Print Media Studio, some faculty members from the Print-making Department resented my use of this media. When I look back upon those works today, they are typical representations of humanism and realism. These works indicated my thinking of that period. But at the time those two series of my work were attempts to experiment with some new techniques of expression. For instance, I mainly used the single line sketching of baimiao, or single line drawing in traditional brush and ink style, in creating "Wild Flower". Baimiao technique as such borrowed from the illustrations of Chen Hongshou (1598-1652) for the classical Chinese novel Water Margins.[ Writer by Shi Naian, (Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644) ] The materials used were Chinese rice paper and ink with the printing technique of rubbing. My intention was to create something absolutely "Chinese". Regarding the four oil 

4Writer by Shi Naian, (Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644)  

（Figure one） Wild Flower Rubbing on polymer Board with rice paper 30×30cm 1982 

（Figure two） Spring ，Summer，Autumn，Winter . 40×80cm/each Oil on oil-cardboard 1982  

paintings on oil-cardboard, I tried to copy the genre of the Mexican mural artist Diego Rivera (1886 –1957), since I saw common grounds of rustic humanity in his description of Mexican customs and in my feelings towards the Chinese countryside. Since liberalisation policies were implemented and China opened to the rest of the world in the 1980s, economic growth has been rapid. Although the socialist ideology was still promoted by a one-party ruling power, there was relatively more freedom in many aspects of social life, including publishing and higher education. From the 1980s many books were published to introduce the various schools of the 19th and 20th centuries in Western philosophy and literature. In higher education, politics was, and is still, a core course for all undergraduate study,[6 From 1949 to even today, Politics is a core course for students at all levels. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the contents of Politics is only to introduce Marxism and History of the Chinese Communist Party.] but at the Central Academy of Fine Arts during the period 1980-84, apart from introducing the theories of Marxist politics and economics, lecturers cautiously began to provide comprehensive summaries of the history of Western philosophy to students as well. During that period of my study there, I encountered and came to know of the work of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831), the pragmatism of John Dewey (1859 – 1952), the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) and the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 –1980). Through having taken this course, I came to the realisation that Marxism was not in fact the only theory for interpreting human beings and their world. In November 1985, Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925), an American contemporary artist, held a solo retrospective exhibition at the China

6 From 1949 to even today, Politics is a core course for students at all levels. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76),
 the contents of Politics is only to introduce Marxism and History of the Chinese Communist Party.

National Museum of Fine Arts. This was the Chinese public's first opportunity to see original work by a contemporary Western artist[ Gao Minglu, Inside Out: New Chinese Art exhibition catalogue, University of California Press Ltd., p. 197]. During the same historical period Chinese publishing circles and art critics began to introduce the various 20th century art movements that have taken place in the West. All of these had a direct and critical influence on art circles in China, e.g. Dada, Pop Art, Happening and Photo-realism. As Gao Minglu, a contemporary art critic said, "In Mainland China in the 1980s, artists responding to a monolithic state ideology searched out a free subjectivity and presented an iconoclastic ideological utopia".[ Gao Minglu, Inside Out: New Chinese Art exhibition catalogue, University of California Press Ltd., Los Angeles, p. 19] The events of Tiananmen of June 4th 1989, broke down the utopian exploration of contemporary Chinese artists. Facing this reality, many artists including myself subsequently left China for various reasons, including the space to search for and to develop forms of artistic expression which would enable them to articulate the new and complex sensitivities which had begun to emerge in them as individuals. 

Chapter 2: Emigration and My Art 

"Art is derived from life". This view of art which was the official guideline for creativity was prevalent among most artists who had received the social realist educational background which was compulsory in China. Living with such an ideology, Chinese artists only considered workers, farmers, soldiers and their social practice to be "life". When artists emigrate to another country or to a different cultural context, their art inevitably comes to an impasse because of a dislocation between creation and society. This problem was particularly serious for Chinese artists who had been rigorously 

6Gao Minglu, Inside Out: New Chinese Art exhibition catalogue, University of California Press Ltd., p. 197

7Gao Minglu, Inside Out: New Chinese Art exhibition catalogue, University of California Press Ltd., Los Angeles, p. 19 

trained in and mastered socialist realist painting techniques, even if they might later also have acquired some rudimentary knowledge of 20th century modernist art. My arrival in Australia as an immigrant in 1989 not only meant the physical dispossession of my living space, but also the dispossession of my identity as an artist as well. My relocation to Australia meant that as an artist I had left China's restrictive cultural environment and that I had been projected into an environment in which I confronted the world. 

This hasty scan reveals, for one thing, an emigrant's artistic problem: the numerically equal blocks of a lifetime are unequal in weight, depending on whether they comprise young or adult years. The adult years may be richer and more important for life and for creative activity both, but the subconscious, memory, language, all the understructure of creativity, are formed very early; for a doctor, that won't make problems, but for a novelist or a composer, leaving the place to which his imagination, his obsessions, and thus his fundamental themes are bound could make for a kind of ripping apart.[ Milan Kundera, Testaments betrayed, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., New York, 1995, p. 94] 

From 1990 to 1993, I did not create any works. Postmodernism and the works of Jeff Koons made me aware of the situation of Western art developments and my own situation as an artist living in the Australian cultural environment. At that time, I was influenced by my reading of the following books: "What is postmodernism?"[ Luo Qing, What is postmodernism?, May 4th Publishing House Ltd., Taipei, Chinese version, 1989], "The Art Phenomenon of Postmodernism"[ Lu Rongzhi, The Art Phenomenon of Postmodernism, Artist Publishing House, Taipei, Chinese version, 1990]; "From Romanticism to Neo-Romanticism"[ Huang Haiyun, From Romanticism to Neo-Romanticism, Artist Publishing House, Taipei, Chinese version, 1990]; "Jeff Koons"[ Angelika Muthesium, Jeff Koons, Benedikt Taschen, New York, 1992]; and "Beyond Modernism – Essays on Art from the '70s and '80s"[ Kim Levin, Beyond Modernism – Essays on Art from the '70s and '80s, Harper and Row, New York, 1988]. These theoretical books and the art work of Jeff Koons inspired me in a number of ways. First, the function of postmodern theories to "de-centre" helped me to regain confidence that it

8Milan Kundera, Testaments betrayed, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., New York, 1995, p. 94

9Luo Qing, What is postmodernism?, May 4th Publishing House Ltd., Taipei, Chinese version, 1989

10Lu Rongzhi, The Art Phenomenon of Postmodernism, Artist Publishing House, Taipei, Chinese version, 1990

11Huang Haiyun, From Romanticism to Neo-Romanticism, Artist Publishing House, Taipei, Chinese version, 1990

12Angelika Muthesium, Jeff Koons, Benedikt Taschen, New York, 1992

13Kim Levin, Beyond Modernism – Essays on Art from the '70s and '80s, Harper and Row, New York, 1988 

 was possible for a person like me with a Chinese cultural background to be an artist in Australia. Koons also made me aware that Chinese culture and knowledge could be effectively appropriated into the Western (or Australian) context of contemporary art. Second, the notion that "postmodernism is impure"[ Kim Levin, Beyond Modernism - Essays on Art from the '70s and '80s, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, p. 7] asserted a separation or divergence from the linear development of modernism in art form, in other words, art in contemporary times had become de-centred. This theory directed me to find a "legitimate way of entering" into the contemporary Australian art world by utilising the realist painting techniques, in which I had been trained for so many years. Finally, the works by Jeff Koons influenced me in the following two aspects. First, they assisted me to escape out of the rigid constraints of both the dogmatism of my realist training and from the so- called "originality" of modernism. I suddenly began to realise that the resources of contemporary art creation were multi-faceted and to recognise the dynamic power of "irony" and "humour" when applied to the surface of realistic beauty. Second, the subject matter of Koons' work was selected with the intention of "self-deprecating banality", which held to powerful ridicule the seemingly very "serious and orthodox work" prevalent in the realm of contemporary art. (Many of these works are absurd and can not even be understood by professional artists, myself included.) All these influences prompted me to initiate my own art concepts.

In 1994, I completed eight pieces of oil work "Beauties captured in Time" (Figure three, 96 x 107 cm/each). The subject matter of these works was based on selective appropriations from the Chinese Erotic Painting of the 18th and 19th-centuries. The work is a hybrid in form and color, the individual pieces are each hybridised by Chinese folk 

14 Kim Levin, Beyond Modernism - Essays on Art from the ‘70s and ‘80s, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, p. 7

（Figure three） Beauties captured in time Oil on canvas 96×107cm/each 1994 

art (with the form of ancient Chinese Door Guard Painting and with the bright and beautiful colours indicating happiness of Chinese New Year Painting) in combination with the light and perspective of classical Western oil painting. The painting technique of flatness and subtlety was used and for strategy, the appropriation that is typical of postmodernism was used. In this respect, however, my appropriation is significantly different. I did not copy any detail of the original erotic paintings. My appropriation was based on appropriating the particular "taste" inherent in the Chinese Erotic Painting of the18th and 19th centuries. This sensuousness had been accumulated through centuries of gradual development and may be described as humorous, subtle; and suggestive. This sensuousness is different from that of Japanese and Indian genres of Erotic Painting. In Japanese Erotic Painting, it is blatant and aggressive; and in Indian Erotic Painting, mysterious and imaginative, which might relate sex with religion in the way of thinking for Indians.[ Marc de Smedt, Chinese Erotism, productions Liber SA Pribourg-Geneve, 1981/83 Tom and Mary Anne Evans, Shunga – The Art of Love in Japan Paddington Press Ltd., New York & London, 1975 Philip Rawson, Erotic Art of India, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1977] In summary, what Chinese Erotic Painting tries to denote is urban vulgarity,or vulgar interest, which is diametrically opposed to traditional Chinese Literati Painting or the art viewpoints of Western modernism. 

My intention in "Beauties captured in Time" was to revive a genre of painting in Chinese tradition in order to create something that was distinctly Chinese yet at the same time contemporary. Whatever the choice of the subject matter or colour might be, I tried to adhere to a single principle for the work, that is, luck, happiness and frivolity. The series of work consist of eight pieces. The border areas of the paintings are coloured in red, the symbol of happiness and good luck in traditional Chinese culture. In each of the eight pieces, I painted a "shadowy figure", which might be interpreted by viewers as the artist or as another modern person. This shadowy figure is designed to suggest the ephemeral nature of human existence, whoever the figure represents will inevitably pass away. All life is ephemeral. However, a historical memory or sensuousness may have an eternal existence. I portrayed eight Chinese maidens in different postures and dressed differently. They do not appear to be "girls of good families", but appear to be "frivolous and fun- loving girls". This series of work successfully positioned my art identity in Australia in the art context of Australian "multiculturalism" and at the same time placed me in the "postmodernism" index that is popular in the Western context, that is, Europe and America. By the use of techniques and the expression of sensuousness, Chinese traditions were appropriated but did not "date" this series of works. On the other hand, 

 15Marc de Smedt, Chinese Erotism, productions Liber SA Pribourg-Geneve, 1981/83

    Tom and Mary Anne Evans, Shunga – The Art of Love in Japan Paddington Press Ltd., New York & London, 1975

    Philip Rawson, Erotic Art of India, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1977

this strategy of appropriation allowed the work to retain a distance from the work of most contemporary Australian artists. The series "Beauties captured in Time" resulted in my being awarded a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts in 1995. For me this was a benchmark in my art . This restored my confidence as an artist and I resolved to establish a genre of self-being. 

The completion of my series "Beauties captured in Time" demonstrated that I had found a point of convergence between the Oriental and the Western for my art. I then resolved to work towards consolidating my art style by creating more works, but all my strenuous efforts failed. One reason was that limited resources available constrained my attempts to create more works. Because the dresses and patterns of the fabrics used in depicting the eight maidens in the paintings had originated from historical publications in China, the efforts I made to collect materials only resulted in my growing frustrated and despondent. The other reason was that nostalgia for the past had become a major part of my daily life from 1989 and 1994. During that period, I found that I could not adjust to living in this unfamiliar environment. Nevertheless as time passed, I gradually underwent another period of emotional transformation and I began to feel dissatisfied with the nostalgia in my work. I was aware of a need to search for other possibilities for my art. 

In 1995, I created another series of eight pieces of work entitled "Sex and Play". Two resources formed the essence of this series: Chinese Erotic Painting of the 18th and 19th centuries and French Rococo painting from the same period of European history. Both of these elements are clearly manifested in this work but are segregated in the composition by placing one in the upper part and the other in the lower part of each work. A number of astrological symbols are used to provide a link between the two in order to imply a relationship. It was obvious to me that the experiment was a failure, and that it had been caused by using only one postmodern strategy and in fact simplifying it. The work seemed to be saying "Look at me! I know what a postmodern painting is." At that point I came to the realisation that world art history tells us that a theory becomes a part of history as soon as it is established. 

The dawn of this Post-human world can not be portrayed in the same way as the world of Picasso, or even the world of Andy Warhol. Its portrayal demands a new conception of figurative art that takes as much from television talk show as it does from art history.[Jeffrey Deitch, Post Human, exhibition catalogue, FAE Musee d'Art Contemporain, 1992, p.15]

Through reading this work by Deitch, I further understood that the relationship between art history and human society was interactive and began to rethink several questions. What is the difference between my life in the 1990s and the past? How could I relate my art to the contemporary or the present rather than have it as appendage or an explanation of some theory? What is my own genre? What impact have personal computers and their popularity in families in the 1990s made upon the visual arts? 

Through contemplating the above questions and what I saw as my failure in the eight pieces of work "Sex and Play", I recognised that I had to liberate myself from the shadow of modernist theories, and at the same time, walk out of the dogmatic principles of postmodern theories. I was reminded that I had to find my own way in art and that I should express my own contemporary feelings, but not to limit myself to describing a regional culture. My work should not reveal figures with gratuitously national traces, but should be descriptive of the essence of humanity in a broader sense. By using this general formula, I should be able to avoid the limitations of resources, that is the 

meticulous detailing of symbols of the past. The use of figures not wearing any clothing could provide me with greater freedom. Through my contemplations, I created a large- size work on canvas "Happiness" (Figure four, 800x170cm) in 1996. This work was informed by the art of Francesco Clemente (b.1952), a contemporary Italian artist, ancient Chinese mural paintings and the phenomena of gay, lesbian and transsexuality. There exists a similarity in techniques – flatness and sketching out in part of Clemente's work and ancient Chinese mural painting, a slight difference being Clemente's use of light and shade. The only significant difference in my work from Clemente's composition, was my use of symmetry. Symmetry and balance are traditional Chinese techniques, e.g. as found in ancient Chinese architecture like the Palace Museum. It is a 

（Figure four）Happiness Acrylic on canvas 800×170cm 1996 

typical manifestation of harmony and tranquillity which lie at the heart of Chinese traditional thinking and on which Chinese civilisation has been built. The figures used in my work are not gender specific, that is, are transsexual, and imply the interchangeableness of gender roles in contemporary human beings. 

If the work "Happiness" is compared to "Beauties captured in Time", painted just two years earlier, it becomes clear that I have tried in the second painting to open up to broader resources (non-nationality symbols), and to flexibility in technique (not limiting myself to using light and shade and perspective but extending to line and colour flatness) and that I have sought to reveal contemporary feelings through these works (fiction, irony and flux) in order to find a language, both in technique and subject matter, to express my present circumstances as an artist and the uncertainty of living an immigrant's life. 

The large-size work "Happiness" is painted in grey colour with flatness in the background, and the figures in the front give the impression of floating. A sudden chance look at it gave me an inspiration: Why could I not put these figures on walls directly, as if they are floating? The wall could be used as the background, and these images could be placed freely and at random. With this inspiration in mind, using wood-board, I quickly cut out one piece of work. That work was the first piece of the series of ten wood-board wall sculptures titled "Two from One" in 1997. 

Chapter 3: My New Art Form as Means of Survival 

The sudden change in direction of my art form from the two dimensional acrylic painting work "Happiness" to my fragments of wall sculpture which hang five centimetres from the background wall seem to have resulted from an inspiration. But this inspiration was based on many years of creative experience, during which I had come across a large number of problems. One problem was that I always felt that my most recent works lacked an organic connection with my previous works, despite my intention to establish some link and to retain a continuity between them. It seemed that all of those earlier works I had created maintained a sense of distance from my constantly changing emotions. It also seemed that I was anxious to find a new means of expressing those emotions and my state of mind. When I discovered the fragments of wall sculpture as my new form and had completed ten pieces of wood-board wall sculpture in 1997, I instinctively sensed that these works had accurately expressed both my thoughts and feelings. What led me to invent this form of expression came from two factors in my personal circumstances which shifted my understanding of art to a new stage of development. 

To begin with, it was seven years since I had migrated to Australia in 1989 and the changes in my external environment and the content of my daily life directly influenced my way of life, my interests and my concerns. 

Prior to my coming to Australia, the print work "Wild Flower" which I created in 1982 was the re-creation of a real scene of Chinese country life as seen through my eyes. That realist work was the incarnation of my emotions of that period, which had been influenced by realist art theory. In 1982, being a member of the Chinese art world which had been isolated from world development for several decades, I had no understanding of modernism or postmodernism. However, what was important was that "Wild Flower" was symbolic of myself, of my experiences in life and of my concern for the land I lived in and its people. The humanistic feelings embedded in the work originated from my own sense of belonging, along with so many other ordinary people of all age to that land. That land and the people were intimately and intricately bound to my identity. In 1994, in the fourth year of my living in Australia, I created the series of works "Beauties captured in Time", which consisted of eight pieces portraying Chinese maidens from ancient times. This series of works had been theoretically influenced by postmodernism, but my strategy in art form was "appropriation", that is, the appropriation of those Chinese maidens in order to compensate for my feelings of loss and to satisfy my nostalgia. In 1997, the seventh year of living an immigrant's life in Australia, both my knowledge of this new land and my proficiency in English had improved with the passage of time. I then entered an emotionally turbulent period, a period of "emotional transmigration" akin to that described by Milan Kundera below: 

We experience that estrangement not vis-a-vis the new country: there, the process is the inverse: what was foreign becomes, little by little, familiar and beloved.[ Milan Kundera, Testaments Betrayed, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., New York, 1995, p. 95]

Under such circumstances, it was impossible for me to create any realist works like "Wild Flowers". I had been living in Australia, a beautful country with magnanimous people for seven years since migrating at the age of thirty-two. However, I still had a strong sense of being a stranger in this land and I had no sense of being an integral part of this new environment. It seemed that this sense of belonging, is rooted in a common language environment in which people grow up and are familiar with its traditions and customs. When people live and grow up in the same place from childhood within the same cultural environment, they share a memory of that place in which they enjoy an intimacy, that is, a sense of belonging to the place. I spent my childhood and youth in China and used the Chinese language exclusively for thirty-two years during my education and life there. I grew up in a cultural environment that is completely different from where I now live (Australia) and this has made it hard for me to adapt to living here.

My experience of seven years in Australia provided me a deep critical doubt about migrant life, language is an essential part of forming a cultural and individual philosophy. It doesn't matter how good your command of English is, it will not lead to a same understanding as the local Australians. Forming the meaning of a phrase or a word is forever a moving process in the specific social and historical context of a culture. The emotional part of the word and phrase derived from the certain historical and cultural pasts cannot be experienced by an outsider. I will always be alienated from it. I can only accept the alienation. Experiencing a different culture has caused me to become a 'mixed body', I accept this mixed body as me also.[ Huangfu Binghui, In and Out: Contemporary Art from China and Australia, exhibition catalogue, Laslle-Sia College of the Arts, 1999, p. 28]

My seven years of living an immigrant's life made me feel confused about where my past was and where my hometown is now located. My dilemma was like that of the many immigrant artists described by Milan Kundera in his book Testament Betrayed. After the composer Stravinsky left Russia, his home country, he too was forced to face the issue of artistic creation in a new environment: 

Without a doubt, Stravinsky, like all the others, bore within him the wound of his emigration; without a doubt, his artistic evolution would have taken a different path if he had been able to stay where he was born. In fact, the start of his journey through the history of music coincides roughly with the moment when his native country ceases to exist for him; having understood that no country could replace it, he finds his only homeland in music; this is not just a nice lyrical conceit of mine, I think it in an absolutely concrete way: his only homeland, his only home, was music, all of music by all musicians, the very history of music; there he decided to establish himself, to take root, to live; there he ultimately found his only compatriots, his only intimates, his only neighbors.[ Milan Kundera, Testament Betrayed, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., New York, 1995, pp. 96 – 97]

For many years of my life as an immigrant, apart from when I was involved in artistic creativity, I lived in an indirect way in society through the media such as TV, newspaper and later via the computer, which had become my closest friend. Through years of living like this, I stored in my mind a large number of surface and journalistic "visualised fragments" of non-interconnectedness.

Also, I came to be influenced by the novels of Milan Kundera , Jorge Luis Borges andthe theoretical books of Waldrop which introduced me to concepts such as "Complexity" and the relevance of Taoism. The theory of "Complexity" was especially important. The theory states that since the time of Newton, the various disciplines of the humanities have developed with the linear, reductionist thinking of scientists. 

The Newtonian clockwork metaphor is akin to standard Protestantism. Basically there's order in the universe.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 330] The royal road to a Nobel Prize has generally been through the reductionist approach…dissecting the world into the smallest and simplest pieces you can; you look for the solution of some more or less idealized set of problems, somewhat divorced from the real world, and constrained sufficiently so that you can find a solution.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 60]

From a historical point of view, the visual arts developed in an inferential or a relay-race way, as did science. Especially during the 20th century before the end of modernism, the various movements of modernism further prompted the linear development of the visual arts into the one context. Art critic, Kim Levin points out: 

Modern art was scientific. It was based on faith in the technological future, on belief in progress and objective truth. It was experimental: the creation of new form was its task.[ Kim Levin, Beyond Modernism - Essays on Art from the '70s and '80s, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, p. 4]

After modernism, the non-linear developments seemed to open up to a broader space for creation, but the concepts of modernism still seemed to dominate people's creativity like a nightmare. This was particularly the case for Chinese artists, myself and others included, who for historical reasons were belatedly introduced to modernism. Waldrop is correct in asserting that 

Indeed, except for the very simplest physical systems, virtually everything and everybody in the world is caught up in a vast, nonlinear web of incentives and constraints and connections.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 65]

With the advent of the fast developing era of "information technology society" and the inroads of globalisation with the popularisation of personal computers, the relationship between art and society has become more complex than ever before. It is now very difficult for artists to use the theories of the past to guide their creative efforts. For those historical periods from Rembrandt and Van Gogh to de Kooning, "creating a unique art form" was a truth in the visual arts. In order to create a unique art, artists of those ages had to build up confidence and a particular viewpoint for looking at the world which was compatible to the social developments of their times. But in the information technology society of contemporary times, an event that happens in a particular place or a concept that is developed any where can be transmitted to every corner to the world through television and the internet almost instantaneously. In other words, the same information is being shared by everybody including artists. If the above-mentioned well-known artists had already established uniqueness in their works, what then is the representational uniqueness shown in Jeff Koons' work? Is it his wet-dry rug cleaners? Or his Nike basketball star ads? Or his large puppy installation made with flowers? Or his love- making picture with Ilona Munich? Nevertheless all these works belong to Jeff Koons. Has what Koons achieved resulted from some kind of hidden concept inherent in the various patterns of his works? Or has the power of the media forced us to accept and recognise that all these various unrelated symbols of imagery belong to Koons? Or even both? However, it is certain that there is an essential difference in art strategy between Koons and others. He has utilised a great variety of materials and symbols for one single purpose, his visual art. 

The New electronic time and space also seems to be shaping a new kind of thinking, oriented toward images and sound bites. The former emphasis on deductive rational structures and lengthy narrative has been eclipsed by the a electronic media's compressed sense of time. The television audience is being trained to take in complex issues through successions of images and compact, packaged commentary…[ Jeffrey Deitch, Post Human, FAE Musee d'art Contemporain, 1992, p. 37]

The structure of thinking is changing, and it appears that the quality of thinking is changing as well. Patterns of thinking are becoming less rational. With the collapse of many of the modern era's hierarchical belief systems, and their replacement by multifaceted alternatives, people are moving away from hierarchically structured rational thinking to a more perceptual, less structured outlook and a more irrational mode of thought. An irrational outlook in fact might be a more appropriate approach to a world that seems to have outgrown its modern utopian faith in rational solutions.[ Jeffrey Deitch, Post Human, FAE Musee d'art Contemporain, 1992, p. 39]

Today, by playing the electronic game, people from one place are able to experience a virtual reality of being in another place, or another period of time in the past or future. Such experiences of life were previously inconceivable. Electronic games range from car racing, surfing, driving, planes traveling in outer space, Kung Fu competitions between the East and the West and "star wars". Via the internet in the morning, a person is able to visit Paris and the Louvre, at noon, have "Yumcha" in Chinatown; in the afternoon, shop at an Italian fashion store; in the evening, go to see an American film called "Forest Gump". 

In the late 20th century, especially the 1990s, there are numerous changes of immense proportions in our environment. These changes have forever altered our concepts and visual experiences. 

In 1969, the first human being walked on the moon. In 1975, personal computers came into use in the USA and by the late 1990s had become a major part of everyday life. In 1996, "Dolly", the world famous sheep cloned at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. The discovery of DNA means that scientists may soon succeed in making a list or map of the 3 billion different "letters" in human DNA. 

My contemplation of these vast changes made me aware that the external environment where I live today is becoming more and more complex. How could I as a visual artist adapt myself to these changes? 

The alternative – the complex approach – is total Taoist. In Taoism, there is no inherent order. "The world started with one, and the one became two, and the two became many, and the many led to myriad things." The universe in Taoism is perceived as vast, amorphous, and ever changing. You can never nail it down. The elements always stay the same, yet they're always rearranging themselves. So it's like a kaleidoscope: the world is a matter of patterns that change, that partly repeat, but never quite repeat, that are always new and different.…On the other hand, if you quietly observe the flow, realizing that you're part of it, realizing that the flow is ever-changing and always leading to new complexities, then every so often you can stick an oar into the river and punt yourself from one eddy to another.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, pp. 330 – 331]

The Complexity Theory refers to Taoism which originated in China over two thousand years ago. Taoism asserts that the world is made up of five essential elements: gold, wood, water, fire and earth, and that the world exists because of the continually changing combinations of those elements. 

The Tao of Tao is natural. Tao does not create the myriad things consciously, since Tao is not God. Yet the myriad things originate from Tao. The creation of the myriad things is totally natural, the process of constant flux, there is nothing mystical about it.[ Zhang Liwen, Zhang Xutong, Liu Dachueng, The Myriad Scene – Taoism and Chinese Culture, Beijing People's Publishing House, 1996, Chinese version, p. 34]

These theories have made me aware that I should rethink my concepts regarding the visual arts. But what concepts should they be? How should I reposition my art and where was my road to art? At that time, I had no clear ideas, but seemed to be eagerly searching for my own interpretation of art. At first, I was aware that the "fragments" form appealed to me, since a work in such a form was complex and was in a state of continuous flux between the genres – the fragments or elements had multiple interpretations. A form as such not only strongly expressed my emotional changes and amorphous feelings, but also provided me with a larger space for developing my art. 

In 1997, I created a series of ten pieces of wood-board wall sculpture as an experiment "Two from One" (Figure five, variable sizes). The theme was selected under the influence of the five elements in Taoism. My choice of the details of the series was: human body parts, animal body parts, plant, gas and liquid. The constant flux of the compounding of these elements resulted in ten different images. These images were made in irregularly shaped fragments, however, any combination of the images could constitute a new composition. These works were hung five centimetres from the background wall, and under reflected light, produced an aura of mystery. 

（Figure five）Two from One Plywood and acrylic Variable sizes 1997 

Another reason for my inventing this form was simply because I wanted to escape from the general art rules of the time. In essence, I wanted to do something different. The basic concept came from the primitive attitude from ancient Taoism for interpreting the world. But I combined this concept with the art patterns of contemporary images. Taoism influenced my selection of images from either human or animal bodies or the parts of plants which all had natural growth. They would continue to grow and would change from their present state. 

What I did was to deliberately emphasize their variations by depicting these visual images and making seemingly impossible become possible. I did not denote my attitude in the work, but only stressed the variations by appropriation. The real meanings of the work could have multiple interpretation through its ever-changing compositions. The five centemetres distance kept between the wall and the work is very important for it gives a sense of something floating in the air to the viewer. This is also a reason why the fragments can exist independently. When any objects are hung flush to a wall, they bring a sense of flatness, stasis and normality to the viewer, but when they suddenly grow out from a wall, they produce a totally different sensation. 

The fragments of wall sculpture form that I had chosen was distinctly different from my previous works. Significantly, this form focuses more on production. When the concept and the design option of the works had been planned, they were produced in sequence and in a rational manner. If there were some similarities in the process of constructing a concept and designing the draft layout between this form and my previous painting, the difference is in the process of making. In the past when I drew the draft for a painting, my painting techniques were greatly needed to make adjustments in the process of creation. The process included a large amount of exploration and unexpected happenings. If my emotions and techniques were successfully combined into my painting, the resulting work could well be excellent. However, if I was out of luck, another painting might turn out to be a failure. But the process of producing fragments of wall sculpture is quite different because through rational thinking I can control the quality of production as in the case of ordinary non-artistic products. I had therefore reduced the chance happenings which can occur in the process of producing a painting. In other words, this form strengthened rationality of production to avoid the interference of personal emotions and unexpected happenings. This feature of the production led me to plan and manage my time more scientifically, that is, how many pieces of work and how long they would take within a year could be managed. I came to the realisation that for this form to allow me to produce more works in the ever-changing and complex art environment, and for these works at the same time to remain experimental and challenging, I would have to spend more time absorbing, viewing and carrying out research for my next art strategy. 

You have to assume that the transitions are going to continue forever and ever and ever. You have to talk about systems that remain continuously dynamic, and that are embedded in environments that themselves are continuously dynamic.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 356]

For the above reasons, I found that it was necessary for me to maintain the quality of my work and to try to reduce my production time. My rough timetable for previous years was to use no more than one third of a year for producing my art work, the rest of the year would be spent on research and absorption. In so doing, I was able to accumulate some saving for renting a studio and was able to adapt myself to various ways of living, e.g. going back to China or travelling elsewhere abroad. These travels allowed me to enrich my experiences and to accumulate more knowledge, to benefit my artistic creativity. In so doing I am seeking after the hybridity of the subject matter such as that experienced by Francesco Clemente. (Each year, he lived in each of these countries: Italy, India and the USA). My intention in the fragments of wall sculpture form was based on a single principle: that they could be produced in any place and by anyone. 

Chapter 4: Changes in the Material and Theme 

Furthermore… complex adaptive systems are constantly revising and rearranging their building blocks as they gain experience.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 146]

Having created the series of ten pieces of wood-board wall sculpture in 1997, I continued to use the compounding of the five elements and completed the conceptual design for another series of forty pieces of work. During the period from late 1997 and early 1998, when I took the opportunity of revisiting my relatives in my hometown, Tianjin, China, I discovered a metal crafts manufacturing factory and successfully produced thirty-seven pieces of sheet metal wall sculpture "Two from One" (Figure six, variable sizes) by using its space and by employing three of its workers who followed my instructions in the 

（Figure six）Two from One Metal sheet Variable sizes 1998 

process of production. The production quality of the work was well maintained. There was no change made for the elements of the images from the first series of wood- board wall sculptures to the second series of sheet metal wall sculptures. The only variation was in the material used. Since the silver-grey colour of the sheet metal itself reflects light and refracts various sources of light through the surfaces of the works, the original colour of the sheet metal is retained. In order to produce a variety of sensations to the viewer when the work is displayed, the light sources might be altered to infuse the work with different colours. For better display effects, the background wall might also be coloured. The significant change in material, to sheet metal from ply wood, meant that details could be welded directly onto sheet metal. The result is greater flexibility and increased variations in visual effects of the work. This visual effect is compatible both with the concept embedded in this series of work and with the title "Two from One", which originates in Taoism and implies flux and change. 

I am not the first person to have committed others to the production of works employing my artistic concepts and selection of images. Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons precede me. In so doing, the only difference between us is that my works were made in China. Apart from considering factors related to the language barrier, such a choice also resulted in the cheaper cost of manpower, material and production-space, compared to that of making the works in Australia. 

This series of works differed from my previous work is that other people had assisted me in the production, for me this was a first time experiment. I thought that this way of producing my "fragmented wall sculpture" best suited my situation, which included my language ability, cost of production and the changeable way of my life. My intention is to be able to keep on creating new works. 

The advancement of computer technology has compressed space and time, and seems to have us living in a global village. As a result, greater international cooperation is gradually becoming possible, and each region is benefiting from this advancement which has also changed the traditional concepts of human beings in every aspect. For instance, every product on sale in IKEA, one of the world's largest chain companies is produced through the cooperation of many manufacturers. A clock is designed by IKEA, its case made in Finland, its movement made in Japan and the market might be in Australia and America or around the world. Another example is the Australian clothing industry. Many companies began to commit manufacturers from the third world countries to manufacture low-grade clothing in the early 1990s and then medium-grade in the mid-1990s. I do not have much knowledge about management. How to run a business has nothing to do with my research, however, one point is clear. Australian clothing manufacturers and IKEA are trying to adapt their businesses to the continuous changes of the outside world and are taking advantage of these new opportunities and the advancement of new technologies. Their purpose is to make a living. It could be said that this concept of management was used as my reference for creating this series of "sheet metal wall sculpture" in China. It was an experiment to investigate the possibility of producing many works within a short period of time so that I could survive and develop my art. In June 1999, Ray Hughes Gallery in Sydney held my solo exhibition. Then seven pieces of this series were also shown in a group exhibition held at the National Gallery of Australia in July 2000. Those seven pieces of my work were later collected by the National Gallery of Australia. 

Finally…complex adaptive systems typically have many niches, each one of which can be exploited by an agent adapted to fill that niche.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 147]

In 1999, I was enrolled as a postgraduate student into the Sydney College of the Arts. When I was shown around the campus, I was very impressed by the carpentry and iron- smith workshops facilities and the working conditions. 

The initial object of my research paper was focused on the development of Chinese contemporary art. Through carrying out research on Chinese artists' active involvement in the international arena of the contemporary visual arts since the 1980s, I wanted to further contemplate the road of my own art. Therefore, I went back to China twice to do my research. During my stay in Beijing from June to October 1999 and from November 1999 to February 2000, I met with many freelance artists. I also produced a documentary titled "Song Zhuang · Artists · Spring Festival" which relates the creativity of some of these artists and their daily life. With my ongoing research on the Song Zhuang artists, I became more and more aware that as a practising artist I would not benefit from this line of research in terms of my own creativity, unless I wanted to be a curator. Furthermore, they and I alike are artists with a Chinese background, I now live overseas and they still live in China. This distinction signified that I have another "role". It further prompted me that I must develop my own art strategy while confronting my living environment and my own specific "role". The genres of their works could only be used as my references. Thus, I decided to shift the object of my research to my own self-being. My ten-year complicated process of development in the visual arts since migrating to Australia is very unique, and this research on my self-being will benefit and guide my future creativity. 

In my creative work, I decided to continue with my "fragmented wall sculpture" form. On the basis of my previous experience in producing the wood-board and sheet metal wall sculptures, I chose to create the wood-board relief sculpture with acrylic colours added on for my next series of work. At that decision-making moment, those delicate facilities in the workshops, which I had been shown on the campus tour, suddenly came into my mind. The size of my new series work should be limited to 80 centimetres in diameter. Within this relatively smaller size, I could produce work with greater intricacy. The material I chose was MDF after I had tested various kinds of wood which would lead the relief sculpture to a visually delicate result because of the easily-handled electric tools. Also a higher production quality for the work could be maintained within such a small size. From March to July 2000, I created a series of forty pieces of MDF wall sculpture in relief (Figure seven) by using the electric tools of the campus workshops. 

(Figure seven) Fragment M.D.F Variable sizes 2000 

There is an obvious difference in the theme of the new series and that of my previous ones. Under the impact of Taoism, the theme of the previous two series with their compounding of the five elements sought to express an instinctive feeling of originality, mystery and flux. When I constructed my concept for those two series of work, my intention was to repeatedly use the five elements in the work to expose a sense of richness, variation and flux. However, in the process of their creation, I had exhausted my imagination. But for this new series of forty pieces of work, I used appropriation rather than imagination. The images were all collected from around me, and included: ancient religious photos, trade marks of industrial products, daily necessities, printing materials for art works and symbols of flux. It can be said that these images are reproduced from what others have created. These very popular or relatively popular images and icons became the theme for this new series. The colour tone for the work is pink-based. My decision to colour the work was to vary or eliminate the original meanings of each popular image. 

I had given consideration to two aspects in choosing to use popular images as my theme. One aspect is that the viewer would easily understand the work because these popular images are familiar, and that a great variety of interpretations to the original meaning of these popular images have been retained in mind of the viewer. Furthermore, when I attempted to vary the original meaning of these popular images by reproduction, they might be interpreted by the viewers with a distinctive psychological reaction and thus evoke an association. For example, I love the film "Forest Gump" very much. Although the film is a virtual reality, the content is so familiar to the audience that the events portrayed seem to have taken place in reality. The plot and scenes are popularly used in art works, for instance, the love story of the actor and actress, the first love scene under the tree at sunset, the mother's love and death, and the friendship between comrades-in- arms. The content repeats the important happenings of the U. S. A. in the 20th century: the Vietnam War, the hippie movement, the assassination of J.F. Kennedy, drugs, Elvis Presley, the Ping Pong diplomacy with China and the worship of famous figures. Although no high technology with breathtaking and provoking feats has been used, every scene and plot is very familiar to people. The repetitive adoption of the plots has not only made the original meaning of the historical happenings vanish, but has given them new meaning. Such is the power of humour. 

The other aspect is that I reproduced the popular images delicately and used pink as the chief colour for the forty pieces of the work. The images depicted either from religion, daily consumable goods or popular symbols appear to have lost the differences of their representational meanings and to be aesthetically pleasing. I also use the power of humour, since I feel that this is a truth prevalent in our life today. With the coming of the post-industrial era, our life is packaged as an artificial world by the media: 

The world of our everyday experience is full of smooth objects. The dominant aesthetic in everything from running shoes to monumental architecture is the flowing curve and slick surface, the inviting mound and bright hue. Increasingly, the world is crowded with blobs: blobby furniture, blobby cars, blobby buildings.[ Mark Kingwell, the Edge of Reality, Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, September 30, 2000, p. 35]

I do not explicitly denote my attitude in the forty pieces of my work, as I had in the previous two series of works, for the reason that any judgement is relative and unnecessary. Pink seems to be commonly considered as beautiful and is a relatively decorative colour. By putting aside my imagination, I instead created delicate relief sculptures with added colours by choosing popular images around me as fragments. This change in strategy seems to have some similarities to that of Roy Lichtenstein: 

"What I really want is the appearance devoid of its purpose", said Lichtenstein a few years ago. "This is something I've always been interested in, to take the meaning out". His style has always depended on referrals, needing transfusions from comics or ads or other stylized preconceptions to maintain its energy. He lives off other people's imagery.[ Kim Levin, Beyond Modernism - Essays on Art from the '70s and '80s, Harper and Row, New York, p. 234]

If I were not enrolled into the Sydney College of the Arts, I would never have known the existence of the electric tools in the workshop. With the use of these tools, it was possible for the birth of my new form, the wall sculpture in relief. Therefore, it could be said that the "fragmented wall sculpture" form with the characteristics of flexibility and flux fits my way of living a nomadic life. 

Conclusion: 

And that, in turn, means that it's essentially meaningless to talk about a complex adaptive system being in equilibrium; the system can never get there. It is always unfolding, always in transition. In fact, if the system ever does reach equilibrium, it isn't just stable. It is dead. And by the same token …there's no point in imagining that the agents in the system can ever "optimize" their fitness, or their utility, or whatever. The space of possibilities is too vast; they have no practical way of finding the optimum. The most they ever do is to change and improve themselves relative to what the other agents are doing. In short, complex adaptive systems are characterized by Perpetual novelty. [ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 147]

By my own critical review of the creative processes of the three series of "wall sculpture" work from 1997 to 2000, I was able to continue to give a new meaning to my newly created work through changing the material and the theme while still using the same "wall sculpture" form. This form has adapted to my ever-changing self-being and to my living environment. Through discovering and using new materials, I have tried to maintain a continual sense of freshness and vitality in the creative process, whilst continuing to create new works in the same form. This form is characterised as both fixed and changeable, for I understand that my living environment as an external factor is ever changing and that I am constantly changing through the learning and absorption of new concepts and knowledge. Heraclitus, who lived nearly a century before Plato points out: 

You can never step into the same river twice.[ M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity, Simon and Schuster USA, 1992, p. 335]

In today's information era, it should be said that not the same person can step into the same river twice. 

Not everybody has an identity or rather not everybody has a 'fixed' identity. Only the media can make an identity stick, and they only for a limited period. Fifteen minutes turns out to be rather along time, now that we've all got the hang of it.[ Shelley Rice, Inverted Odysseys, exhibition catalogue, New York and Florida, 1999/2000, p. 154]

The Complexity Theory has not only inspired me to create the "wall sculpture" form, but has also led to my applying the theory in my art practice, and it is this which is the most meaningful thing for me. In the creative process, I came to realise an important truth. That truth is: what is essential for an artist is not to create one or two or a series of excellent works, but rather to be able to find out a strategy, with which he or she can keep on using wisely. My interpretation of such a strategy may be defined as the discovery of one's own set of rules in the visual arts, a set of rules demonstrating both openness and closure. Here, I may seem to be contradicting myself. The requirement for openness is so that inherent in the form there is both flexibility and capacity. The requirement of closure is to ensure that the conceptual interconnectedness of one's work can be demonstrated, whilst the operation for producing the work can be controlled within a closed field. 

The meaning of my work in each series of "wall sculpture" form can be interpreted in multiple ways. Each series can be seen as one single sculpture consisting of a number of fragments, or each fragment can either exist independently or join with other fragment(s) to from separate an independent works. There is a relative flexibility in the visual effect. This "fragments" form is suitable to various exhibition spaces. The word "snake" might be used to describe this form of my work. 

With the inspiration of the Complexity Theory, I have analysed the creative process of the "fragmented wall sculpture" form and the production process of my three series of work in this form. My analysis is made on the process of how I have combined the theory into creating this art form according to my living environment and conditions. This might be the best option during this period of my history, but might not be the best strategy for me in the future. Regarding a variety of possibilities for my future art career, I will change and adjust my strategy from time to time with an attitude of openness and tolerance. This attitude might be the most important point I have learned from the theory of Complexity. 

****************************************************************************************************

Why have I selected the title "From Painting to Wall-sculpture"? It seems that such a title chosen for my research paper is conservative. In the history of the visual arts since the early 20th century, human beings not only broke down 2D, but also made an enormous amount of exploration and innovation in all art forms. All boundaries in art form were overridden. In the early 1970s, it was even that: thought that nothing new could be discovered. However, the visual arts has not been eliminated and still exists in the lives of human beings, or, in other words, it is still of value and relevance to keep on creating and promoting the happenings of contemporary art. Every artist develops their own art with a particular strategy and tries to make their art vibrant and dynamic, according to their own specialty, identity and contemporary art "context". The case study of my self- being has sought to make a review and analysis of the process of my transformation from painting to "fragmented wall sculpture" to enable me to gain a better understanding of the relationship between the visual arts and myself, including my living environment today. Therefore, I have made no attempts to explore the value of this art form, or, the significance of my transformation from painting to wall sculpture. In the late 20th century, any reform and innovation in art form itself is not an issue to be solved in the visual arts, or even more to the point, an issue as such will not be explored within the visual arts in the 21st century. What I have attempted to achieve through analysing the process of changes in my art form is to try to explore a contemporary art issue: how a visual artist can adapt to the advances of science and information technology in the society we live in. Through appropriation and adaptation, an art form is more dynamic and breaks down the attitude that the exploration in the visual arts is the exclusive domain of some academics or a special group of power brokers in the art world of a society.  

My attitude towards contemporary art is evident if people understand my artistic development through reading this paper. I expect and also appreciate an art form that can involve a wider range of people, and that can be understood and accepted by more people. This attitude is not instinctual, but originates in my own rational analysis of future social developments and the constraints prevalent in the visual arts while at the same time being informed by Complexity Theory and Taoism. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY