展覽主題：距 離
展覽時間：：2008 3. 8- 2008 3. 30 (Tue-Sun) 11am-7pm
展覽地點：斯依畫廊 Gallery 41
展覽地址：台北市敦化南路一段100巷41號
展覽網址： http://www.gallery41art.com/
從現代到後現代，整個當代藝術表現呈現非常多元的樣貌，形式上有各種可能性，如裝置藝術、行為藝術、數位藝術…題材上也從單純的視覺美學走到試著結合哲學、時事、文化議題…讓整個當代藝術呈現繽紛豐富的景象。
出生於1985年的郭芃君，從小熱愛畫畫，11歲開始正式於董小蕙老師的畫室習畫，18歲與王為祥老師學習攝影，高中畢業至倫敦留學，22歲自倫敦聖馬丁藝術學院大學畢業返台。
在兩地學習的經驗上，她深深的感受到不同創作模式。一邊是重於真誠反應生命經驗，感性的創作模式；一邊則是強調觀念性及表達方式，理性的創作模式。受惠於兩者，在她的創作中流露出兩種模式的結合，自既有的美學價值，走出一種新的可能性。
陸蓉之在「論1990年代女性意識的崛起和女性化的美學品味」提出東方陰性美學裡有種時間流動性的特色：
方美學的「詩境」結合音律的聯想，再加上光影的變化，變成為強調「時間性」 的流動、變化本質。東方女性的陰性美學中，對時間的流逝特別敏感，在文學和繪畫作品皆然。（陸蓉之，民91）
這種強調時間流動性，唯心路線的「東方陰性美學」在郭芃君的學習藝術的路上有很深的影響，而她的作品也經常流露這種凝結片刻的特色。她的作品與其說是捕追特定片刻時間點的情緒，寄情於不特定的物件描寫，更企圖描寫一種距離，人與自我的距離、與記憶的距離、與夢的距離、與他者的距離。
對她來說距離是一種感受，是動態的。這讓她的作品中沒有所謂的絕對，或是一針見血、黑白分明的結論。對事情的探討，總是在灰與白之間遊走。對距離的高度敏感，讓她對事物的感受特殊，經常在距離中尋找答案。她想討論的不是以尺規量測的精準距離，而是一種抽象的感性距離。
在霍爾「隱藏的空間」裡對這樣的空間動力有一番解釋：
人對空間的和距離的感覺，不是靜止的…人對距離的感覺，也跟別的動物一樣。她的空間感覺是動態的，因為，它與行動﹣在一個既定空間內如何動作﹣是有關的，而非被動的視覺來看東西。（霍爾，民67）
由此可知，人無法從空間中抽離自身去測量距離，測量過程中不斷的移動更加說明了距離的不確定性以及其動態性。她的作品中所要呈現的就是這種沒有明確答案的答案、一種模糊曖昧的距離。
在這次展出的作品中，【平行線】與【打開，看見】分別為她對人與人對話間及人與夢之間的距離詮釋。【平行線】為她對跨文化溝通的距離探討。取自不同地區的照片透過影像合成來表達不同文化背景在對話上的距離。【打開，看見】則為她對夢的距離表達，由光作為一個無法擁有的能量，衍生出開燈做夢的想法，透過畫框和一明一暗之間來表達夢與真實的距離。
From modern to postmodern, the whole contemporary art presents a wide range of varieties. To the art form, there are many possibilities, for example, the installation art, the performance art, the digital art, etc. The theme of contemporary art also extends the aesthetic of visual art to combine philosophy, current affairs, and culture issues and so on, which enable the contemporary art to offer a flourishing and panoramic views.
Ariel was born in 1985 in Taipei and was enthusiastic in painting since she was a child. When she was 11- year-old, she started to receive formal art training in Dong Shaw-hwei’s studio. When she was 18, she learned photography from Wang Wei Hsiang. After graduated from senior high school, she went to London and began her art learning in Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. At the age of 22, she earned her BA degree and then returned to Taiwan to start her career in art.
With learning experiences in Taiwan and UK, she deeply feels that there are differences between these two countries in art creation. One emphasizes on the conception and expression of art; the other emphasizes on the emotion of creation. Benefiting from these learning experiences, a combination of these two ways of art creation can be found in her works. She even develops a new possibility of art form from the existing values of art.
Victoria Yung-Chih Lu once explicates the rising of female consciousness and the appreciation of feminized aesthetic occurred in the 90’s. She alleges that a feature, which is the mobility of time, existed in the aesthetics of femininity in the eastern.
The emotions in poetry of the eastern aesthetic connecting with the temperament and the changeable of the light and shadow become the float of time and the essence of change. The aesthetics of femininity of oriental female is highly sensitive to the elapse of time. This feature occurs in the creation of literature and painting as well. (Victoria Yung-Chih Lu, 2002)
The feature, emphasizing on the mobility of time and the aesthetics of femininity in the eastern presented by the Idealism, has a great influence on Ariel, Peng-chun Kuo’s arts learning experiences. Her works often reveal the feature of time-congeal that are not only in the pursuit of emotions in some specific moments and the description of non-specific objects, but more importantly make an attempt to depict the distance. She illustrates the distance between you and me, between memories, between dreams, between other individuals.
For Ariel, the distance is a kind of dynamic feeling. This feature of mobility in the distance expresses the attribute of no absolute and no definite conclusions in her artworks. This kind of feature makes her always probe things in an ambiguous way. To probe into things, she always moves back and forth between grey and white areas.
Ariel is highly sensitive to the distance. When she confronts with various feelings, she will try to find the answers in the distance. What she would like to discuss is not an accurate measurement of the distance, but an abstract emotional distance. Hall's "The Hidden Dimension" explained the power of such a space in this way:
A person's perception of their surroundings and distance is not static… a human's awareness of distance is similar to that of other animals. She feels that the way in which she senses the space around her is fluid as she is able to move around within it, and is also closely related to the way one moves inside a fixed space and is therefore not simply a case of passively absorbing one's surroundings. (Hall, 1978)
Ariel considers there is no one can detach himself from the space to measure distance. When measuring the distance, a process of continuous movement can be discovered. During the course of continuous movement, it interprets the essence of uncertainty and mobility of distance. Her art pieces are exactly intended to give the answer to this kind of uncertainty, which is the ambiguity of distance.
In this exhibition, Ariel presents two different projects, “Parallel Lines” and “Lighten, Seeing” which are responses to the distance between interpersonal communications and to the distance between reality and dream, respectively. “Parallel Lines” contains a set of works that explores the intercultural communication. She merged photographs taken from different locations to express the distance in the communication in various cultures. “Lighten,Seeing” is another project of works about the expression of dream.
She develops the idea of light which gives people the power of dream, from the fact that light is a power that cannot be possessed. Through the frame and the light turning on and off, she intends to convey the distance between reality and dream.
* The aesthetics of femininity in the eastern represents an identity of the artworks created by the female artists in the oriental. This kind of aesthetics reflects a symbol of tender, sensitivity, amenable, instinct, elegant, etc.
