Nurturing the Skill of Growing Images – On Tung Jo-Hung’s Exhibition “Sun Ball – Helping Plants Grow”

By Shen Yu-Chang

Tung Jo-Hung will hold a solo exhibition entitled “Sun Ball – Helping Plants Grow” at the “San Gallery” from May 6 to June 10, 2023, featuring more than ten series of new works related to plants. According to Tung Jo-Hung, “Sun Ball” can be understood as “sunlight as a solid sphere.” How can “sunlight,” not “sun,” be seen as a “solid sphere”? Perhaps we can try to imagine the relationship between “sunlight” and “solid sphere” as “potential” and its “realization.” Sunlight not only gives shape to everything that can be seen but also provides the energy necessary for everything to grow. Therefore, sunlight not only shapes everything into ideal forms that are closer to the Platonic “highest good” but also allows things to constantly transform and develop through the process of potential realization, as explained by Aristotle’s concept of “dynamis.”

As for the meaning of “solid sphere,” we can see it in Michelet’s description of “birds”: “Birds are almost entirely spherical, and they are naturally a sublime, pinnacle, and sacred state manifested by highly condensed life.” Gaston Bachelard commented in “The Poetics of Space”: “For Michelet, a bird is a fully-rounded ball, it is a spherical life.” However, if “sphere” means “highly realized life as a whole,” then for Tung Jo-Hung, isn’t a “plant” also a “sphere”? In this sense, Michelet’s “bird” and Tung Jo-Hung’s “plant” may have a topological “homeomorphism” relationship: both can be seen as “a solid sphere” from their highly realized life perspective. “Sunlight” helps “plants grow” into “a solid sphere” and provides the energy source for their “highly realized life potential.”

The relationship between “sunlight” and “solid sphere” can also be imagined as the relationship between “painter” and “painting.” Painting is not entirely a product of human will. When painting, artists often feel the self-generating nature of the image. However, the painter is not just a “channel” for creating the painting, nor is he or she “producing” the painting. Like “helping plants grow,” the painter must not only “take care of” the painting but also “wait” for it to grow on its own. “Taking care” not only requires “caring” but also requires knowledge of “growth.” In the plant paintings exhibited by Tung Jo-Hung, there are various “hooks,” “circles,” “lines,” and “pillars” that assist in plant growth. These “tools for assisting plant growth” are also “tools for assisting painting growth” in Tung Jo-Hung’s works. What is “painting”? Tung Jo-Hung’s answer in this exhibition may be “the skill of nurturing the growth of images.”

As for how viewers should look at Tung Jo-Hung’s paintings, this article believes that Tung Jo-Hung’s paintings do not follow specific “methods” to “produce,” so it may not be appropriate to reduce his paintings to specific “concepts” or “methods.” However, this article still tries to propose a certain “way of viewing” and based on it, present some “viewing experiences.” Just as a 7-inch vinyl record has so-called “A-side” and “B-side,” this article also tries to divide the discussion about Tung Jo-Hung’s paintings into “A-side” and “B-side.” In the following text, the “A-side” records the “way of viewing” Tung Jo-Hung’s paintings, while the “B-side” records the author’s personal “viewing experiences.”

Jo-Hung Tung, KIRK・Nude Woman_ Acrylic, Oil, Fiberboard, Spray Paint _124.8 x 61.5 cm_ 2023

Jo-Hung Tung, Happiest Time, oil on fiberboard, 125 x 150 cm, 2022

Jo-Hung Tung, On Mount Qingliang, High High Horse, Oil on fiberboard, 185 x 125 cm, 2022

On Dang Ronghong’s Painting (B-side)

It always starts with casually throwing paint onto the canvas. Rather than graffiti, it’s more like picking up an object to focus the consciousness, playing with it, and manipulating it. The comprehensive molding is directed by the fingers. Repeatedly adding soil to the block, the composite material undergoes a qualitative change and becomes an organic entity in the process, as if life is emerging from it. The material that is endowed with memory seems to have self-awareness, carrying the artist’s hand as it moves forward. Visuals are no longer the forerunner of touch; touch can anticipate what it expects to touch. It’s not throwing the ball, but dribbling. Trusting the inevitable feedback from the ball to the hand, the steering wheel is controlled by the hearing. Firm and back and forth. Then comes the problem of the surface. The fiberboard surface is smooth and absorbent. The surface is smooth, unlike the grainy feeling unique to canvas. The brush rustles across the fabric’s surface, while the brush pushes down as if walking on thick carpet, and the force is counteracted by sandpit-like resistance and then falls. The absorbency is high, unlike wood with a specific grain direction. Even though the brush moves lightly and solidly on it, the hydrophobicity is too high, and when the oil paint is not dry, it feels like driving through puddles, and the brush is afraid of losing speed and slipping. The brush marks on the fiberboard are like the clear and crisp echoes of dribbling on maple wood floors.

Sometimes, the underlying oil paint is not dry, and the brush marks remain. Another color is used to bring out new brush marks. The color tone changes and blends in the brush’s drag, but it is not particularly noticeable because the overlapping brush marks are already captivating. The deep monochrome color brushed over the light, undried pink spills out to become double-hook ink lines at both ends of the brush, and the light pink is sandwiched inside, like a piece of meat taking shape. Pause, turn, reverse the elbow’s force, let go, and split into lightning, nerves or tree branches. The light pink brushed over the deep, undried monochrome color is as thick as a lump that no light or sound can penetrate. The image disappears in it, returning to the chaotic state that needs to be reshaped like the base color. But it’s no longer a substrate; it’s a specific lump-shaped object. The trunk, the arm, the fruit, or the steam and fog spitting out of the bottle’s mouth, in short, the sphere and its same kind. The deep monochrome color brushed over the light, dried pink redraws the outline, revealing a clean and clear base color. Especially deep green or blue, it peeps into the deformation of indoor people and still lifes through the stained glass. The light pink brushed over the deep, dried monochrome color vaporizes and shapes against the light. It either weakens the contrast of the underlying layer, recolors it, or simply covers it all. Transparent deep monochrome color is additive carving, while opaque light pink is subtractive sculpture.

Perhaps the surface is just an illusion that never appears under the brush. What exists on the canvas are only lines of different thicknesses. Thick lines cover thin lines, and something must be revealed underneath. This can be achieved by using a color with high transparency, by brushing over with a dry brush, lightly rubbing over when the underlying layer is not yet dry, spraying paint, or simply dotting it with small strokes. Otherwise, it would just be a cover-up. It is better to leave a bright and opaque, slightly blurred outline of the color block rather than just a simple cover-up. Thin lines are overlaid on thick lines to further shape the image. The most common situation is short lines and small dots. They can be in the same direction or scattered. Short lines do not necessarily mean shadows or imply volume. They are more like key hints or annotations when reading the image. They can resemble markings on a prison wall counting the days or unconsciously repeating lists, sometimes becoming twisted and tightly compressed into what appears to be a vector side. Small dots can be dense or sparse. When dense, they are like grooves created by a metal knife scraping over a rubber plate, with the rubber’s elasticity and resistance, digging deeply into the brush marks in the picture and with the center being translucent and the sides thick. When sparse, they are like sparse hairs that grow after several days, with leaf spots in a mural or childish drawings, tea leaves on a draining board, or pictorial raindrops.

Characters appear from time to time. Faces overlap with faces, left profiles with three-quarters of a right squinting face. Then there are faces staring at each other. The most essential vertical structure from the forehead to the nose. The eyes, sometimes with huge hollows. Gazing low with a blank stare, or empty eyes gazing at the viewer, revealing the chaos and disorder below or dotting the pupils to replace meaning with gaze. Mouth open, teeth exposed, puffed cheeks, blowing air or screaming or swallowing, indicating the direction of entry or exit, saliva or sound. The most essential horizontal structure from the back of the hand to the fingertips. It is essential because there is something being held: flowers, fruit, watering cans, garden shovels. There is also a microphone. There are dignified clothes: collars and boots, sharp angles and arcs, buttons and ties, vertical order, broken points, or cross-linking. Faces worth remembering or still-life combinations glimpsed are of the same form, stacked balls and pillars. Even in ordinary moments, dramatic encounters are necessary to remember deeply. The experience is transcribed into a visual record player, and any tiny scratch marks can produce shocking explosions or gorgeous skips when amplified.