The Embroidered Emotions Project is an on-going project that began at the beginning of 2020. It discover how the structure of “words” and “language” can transform when the shape of them is being used as an abstract visual material. This work explores the relationship between verbal thinking and visual thinking and the possible clashing of the two. The goals are to keep investigating the content of language and visuals with various possibilities of subject matters and to explore the performativity of this concept through the different stages of development.

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This project started with the title of another project

"I want to grow flowers on your wounds". The change of direction started with the realization of the title being powerful enough to be the work itself. As a bilingual person living in the United States and working with a second language, the artist is constantly experiencing two languages, the visuals linked with the languages, and the cultural difference behind the languages constantly switching and translating between one another in her brain every second. The anxious feeling of having different communication forms running in her head at high-speed all at the same time makes her want to focus on the essence and true nature of language and communication. With the time-intensive labor nature of embroidery, the artist not only trying to slow things down,but also, she is trying to ruminate the importance of words. The artist aim to use the energy from the abstract visual dimension to grasp the words and stop them from elapsing with time. While contemplating on the essence of language, the artist is also trying to detach the language and explore and reach the essence of communication.

 

After the artist started to develop the work, she discovered more interesting concepts from using words as material for abstract visuals. Before language was invented by humans, images and symbols were the way of communication. Since hieroglyph was a language that was transformed from images, the artist realized her decision of using the line of words to make abstract images, might be a way to push language further into visuals. Mankind developed image to language. Even though the ways of communication continue to get more complicated and accurate, they still have so many miscommunications when using languages. The fact that definition of abstraction is: a conceptual process where general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal signifiers, first principles, or other methods. Since abstracting is the process of extracting true meaning from literal things, it might be representing a most honest and direct way of communication.

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The series were exhibited in Ray's Solo exhibition: Embroidered Emotions at Absence Space in Tainan, Taiwan, 2023.

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About Absence Space:

Absence Space is situated in Tainan City, Taiwan. It was founded on August 10, 2021, and was officially registered under the name of a non-profit performing arts team on October 29 of the subsequent year. Through creation, communal living, hosting reading clubs, and facilitating the sharing of artworks, the space aims to establish a platform for communication while providing art enthusiasts with opportunities to engage with art-related domains. The facility is divided into four distinct areas, comprising a theater, an exhibition space, an artist's daily studio, and an artist-in-residence (short-term) space.