Luo-Han Chen
Studio Notes
The Moth
The image of a moth has a hold on me, so I keep using it in my paintings. It appears in many of them.
I came across this one on a small slope at night. It was injured and close to death. The encounter stayed with me, bringing me back to thoughts about the transience and eternity of life.
Its image lingers, much like the points of light in my paintings, which seem to form unexpected connections, like the constellations people have imagined in stories across different cultures.
The Beginning of Night Atlas
There is a particular melancholy I associate with Jiufen, especially when the streetlights come on at dusk.
In a quiet alley, I saw a moth sitting completely still. The fish-attracting lamps of boats far out at sea, the lights of the mountain town, and the stars above came together in my mind to form this image.
I began developing Night Atlas into a series, to see how far it might go.
The numbers in the titles are chosen intuitively and carry no specific meaning. The works are more like a cluster of stars.
Jellyfish and Their Tentacles
I have long been drawn to jellyfish. They kept appearing in my work during my MFA studies, which led me to develop them into a series of paintings.
They appear fragile and harmless, yet some are highly venomous. Their bodies seem to merge with the surrounding seawater, and their drifting tentacles sometimes become tangled. Through instinct and trial and error, they loosen and come apart. They separate, yet have never truly been apart. The boundaries of their bodies seem uncertain.
Jellyfish are also food: people eat them, and they become part of our bodies. I am drawn to the ways in which we are connected to other forms of life.
In my paintings, the subjects are always suspended against an undefined background. It might be the sea, the sky, the universe, or simply a space without a name.