Photographic Brushstroke

Photographic Brushstroke, a term that has been an oxymoron, is no longer. Being a visual artist is in; many ways like being a singer, if you sound like everyone else then why even bother singing. If you; go to my exhibition with a predetermination of what photography is, you will not find a single; photograph. To me photography is not just a tool to replicate reality onto a two dimensional surface; but a process involving a camera in which an ordinary thing is transformed into the extraordinary.; My works are photographs at heart. I only wish to capture a mundane moment and turn it into; something larger than itself- a drop of paint quickly dissolved in water becomes a dragon, a; landscape in the sky, a war tom area filled with burning trees and mushroom clouds; an intersection; between you and me.; In this paper you will find written words and images taking you through my thought process and; experimentations exploring the idea of emotion over illustration, the balance between aesthetics and; concepts, the beauty found in every seemingly random moment and of course harmony between painting and photography. You will also see how paintings by Jackson Pollock, photographs by Richard Avedon, the art of traditional Chinese painting and people whom I worked with influenced the way I photograph now. All of this resulted in an exhibition titled Photographic Brushstroke, which took place at the Salt Lake City Library during the month of April and May 2010.

v a C n P H O T O G R A P H I C Sa l t La k e C m a rc h ity H U B R U S H S T R O K E public Li b r a r y 3 1 s t - m a y 2 1 s t 20 10 i T HE U N I V E R S I T Y OF U T A H C O L L E G E OF F I N E A R TS FINAL READING APPROVAL I have read the final project paper o f___ \)AW ________________ in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographic style are consistent and acceptable; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the Supervisory Committee and is ready for submission to the Graduate School. 9 liDate JhaiHXSupervisory Committee Approved for the Major Department Approved for the Graduate Council THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a final project paper submitted by Van Chu This final paper has been read by each member of the following supervisory committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. ■>■1$ ChairN^)s£f)h Marotta / / y g » //o 7 s /z s iv * i EdwSxTBdteman Alison Denyer Ph o t o g r a p h i c Br u s h s t r o k e by VAN THIEU CHU A final project paper submitted to the faculty of The University o f Utah In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree o f Master o f Fine Arts Department o f Art and Art History The University o f Utah May 2010 2 C o p y r i g h t © Va n T h i e u C h u 2 0 1 0 A ll R i g h t s R e s e r v e d Table o f C o n t e n t s Abstract 6 G oa ls, past 7 PRESENT 7 HISTORY OF CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT 8 T ree 9 Ric h a r d a v e d o n 10 PAINTING 12 Ja c k s o n p o l l o c k 12 Pa r e i d o l i a 15 process a n d m e t h o d o l o g y 18 h is t o r ic a l Contexts for the w orks 22 Contem porary Contexts fo r the w orks 26 Dragon 27 M u s h r o o m s & trees 30 Co n c l u s io n 33 Bi b l i o g r a p h y 40 4 Li s t o f F i g u r e s LONE R i c h a r d a v e d o n ’s d o v i m a w i t h El e p h a n t s 8 ll J a c k s o n p o l l o c k ’s n u m b e r 3 2 14 C a l l i g r a p h y o f y e n Je n C h i n g 14 IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE 15 w o r k in p r o g r e s s 16 BODY LANDSCAPE 17 E d w a r d W e s t o n ’s P e p p e r # 3 0 19 W O R K IN PROGRESS 21 LAN D 24 W ATER 24 M O U N T A IN S 25 DRAGON 2 28 D RAGONS 29 M U SH R O O M S A N D TREES 1 31 M u s h r o o m s a n d T rees 2 32 D RA G O N 34 LANDSCAPE 35 OCEAN 36 APPENDIX 3 7 - 39 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Joe, I want to thank you for always knowing I can be more and never stopped pushing me, it was hard, I almost threw up and cried a few times but in the end it definitely paid off. Al, you have the best accent in the world and I hope that will never go away. Ed, it’s good to be here all the time because I know there is someone in the building who knows all the answer to my question. But Ed and Al, without your patience, guidance and support I would not be where I am today so I want to thank you with all my heart. John O ’Connell, thank you for helping me with the language o f paint as it is big part o f me now just as much as photography. Laurel, it was a pleasure to be able to work with you discovering what else photography can be and how else I can improve my works. Sam, Kim, Al and Beth, the seminar hours with you guys were far from easy but the benefit got from them was more than worth it, they have helped me in the professional world and I know they will continue to do so. Lewis, I am glad we will both be teaching here during the fall because I will miss our conversations. I think both o f us know half o f what I know about photography came from you. Jan, without your delicious and healthy food most o f us would not survive the two years o f graduate school, so thank you for saving my and our lives. But when I look at the paint marks on my works I think o f painting, and you, and how generous you and Dennis and your family were to me. Stefanie, the U was lucky to have you as a graduate student and I was fortunate enough to be in the same studio area with you, I know I bothered you a lot but I know you were not bothered. Tom, 1 have never seen a painter with such skill, I will not forget those cokes, popcorns and things you have generously taught me. Hey Chad and Annie when I first came to the program I felt like I was lost, but you guys have made it so much easier for me, seeing you guys throwing paint onto panel was one o f the reason I do what I do now. Kirsti, thank you for believing in me and always appreciate my art. Nick, Andy and Tyler, we spent one year sharing that studio space and no I don’t think that was enough. I’m going to miss you guys so much. Nick, you are such a talented designer and it is Rag n ’ Bone’s loss for not adopting that branding you did, Tyler I see you coming back to Chicago and be in the best shows there. Andy I see you coming back to New York and just shake the print making ground. Maureen, my first days teaching was terrifying but it could have been worse if not for your guidance. I also want to thank Monty for introducing me to the works o f Jackson Pollock and other modernists whose works changed the way I photograph. Thank you Jennie, Tiffany, Cheryll, Nevon and Lilian for always being so friendly and helpful in the office. And Shawn, no nothing is broken this time, I just want to thank you for all your help over the years to keep everything working so we can keep making what we are here to make. Mom and Dad, 1 know not enough word can be said for what you have done but on the subject o f my academic and professional life, thank you for having no doubts in my choice o f being an artist and always supporting me with love and care. I want to thank my brother Nhat for showing me many many things, it was the digital camera that he bought along with the program he introduced me to that led to my decision to choose a career in Photography. I want to thank him again, along with his wife Lan and his mom Hau for providing me a family here far and far from home. I want to thank my girlfriend’s family including her two sisters Dao and Yen, her mom Hanu and her dad Minh for always welcoming me with love and great food every Friday night, every holiday and every other day when I come over, your place has become my second home and you guys have become my family. And lastly I want to thank my girl friend Nhi for making me a better photographer and more importantly a better person in every way by always being there, smiling, and loving. It’s your cherishment and encouragement that have kept me going this far. Abstra ct . Photographic Brushstroke, a term that has been an oxymoron, is no longer. Being a visual artist is in many ways like being a singer, if you sound like everyone else then why even bother singing. If you go to my exhibition with a predetermination o f what photography is, you will not find a single photograph. To me photography is not just a tool to replicate reality onto a two dimensional surface but a process involving a camera in which an ordinary thing is transformed into the extraordinary. My works are photographs at heart. I only wish to capture a mundane moment and turn it into something larger than itself- a drop o f paint quickly dissolved in water becomes a dragon, a landscape in the sky, a war tom area filled with burning trees and mushroom clouds; an intersection between you and me. In this paper you will find written words and images taking you through my thought process and experimentations exploring the idea o f emotion over illustration, the balance between aesthetics and concepts, the beauty found in every seemingly random moment and o f course harmony between painting and photography. You will also see how paintings by Jackson Pollock, photographs by Richard Avedon, the art o f traditional Chinese painting and people whom I worked with influenced the way I photograph now. All o f this resulted in an exhibition titled Photographic Brushstroke, which took place at the Salt Lake City Library during the month o f April and May 2010. I GOALS, PAST In Photography everything is a trade off. You give something in order to get something else. You slow down your shutter speed in exchange for a smaller aperture allowing a better depth o f field, you increase your film speed, sacrificing the image quality for the ability to have a shutter fast enough to stop a moving thing in a low light condition. I chose to let go o f the brilliant tonal range, exquisite contrast and natural arrangement o f silver particles and what I got in return was the disappearance of technical limitations associated with film photography and darkroom image making. I wanted to give my photography the freedom painters possess, the ability to have my work only limited by my imagination, not the tool associated with my practice o f choice. Pr e s e n t Like a traditional Chinese ink painter I want my photographs to exhibit emotion over illustration. Like Richard Avedon I aim to find the perfect balance between aesthetic qualities and conceptual ideas. Like Jackson Pollock, I want to give randomness a sense o f order while appreciating the beauty o f every moment that happens in my photograph. To extend the boundaries of Photography, I bring up the question: what exactly is a photograph in the twenty first century ? Can one find his or her own space within a photograph and find it as exciting and unpredictable as a painting, a print or a piece o f sculpture ?. Can one walk the line between abstraction and representation ? By using digital photography, one o f the youngest art forms, and combining it with the essence o f Chinese painting, one o f the oldest continuous artistic practices I aim to bring traditions to the forefront again while giving them a breath o f fresh air through the technological 7 advances o f the twenty first century. I want my photographs, my portraits as personal as they are, to be a reminder that we are the intersection o f what came before us and what is yet to come. H IST O R Y O F CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPM ENT VAN C H U , LONE, 15 IN. X 15 IN. SILVER GELATIN PRIN T, 2 0 0 6 8 A lonely tree standing within a vast empty landscape has always been something that I can instantly connect with because o f the contradictions the image carries. Within an industrial setting trees are always planted together in a group, usually in a park, along the street sidewalk or in a parking lot. Within the natural setting trees grow together as a group from seeds o f the previous generation. Which means it would take an abnormal event to separate that tree from the environment it belongs to. Since we do not know that event we can each relate to that image in our own way. One then can look at a tree standing alone like a lost child separated from his family or a young adult trying to make his way within a foreign environment. An image of anything standing alone will always be associated with the feeling o f isolation: a light in the comer o f the street at night when everyone is already inside with their families, or a car standing there in the middle o f a parking lot on a snowy night. But there is so much more in this rather ordinary organic life form. Bom from seed, it is rooted, lives through its youth, grows old and dies after passing seeds on to the next generation, like a mirror image o f humanity. During the winter time, a tree without its leaves reveals its true structure. Its branches share the same natural universal pattern that can be seen from an aerial perspective o f rivers flowing out to sea, mountains branching and merging into the valley, or a moment o f thunder flashing. Those patterns carry the same contour structure as the veins running though our bodies. Traditional Chinese ink painters used the image o f a dead tree in winter time as a form o f a self portrait of the artist himself during the period o f wartime before the unification o f China. People o f Japan often thought o f trees as sacred-ancestors portrayed as branches on the tree. That association is not too far off from the idea o f the family tree that we can all relate to and find ourselves a part of. The trees then become an image in which reflections o f both mankind and nature can be found. I find the experience of encountering a lone tree is similar to walking by a large mirror, 9 one that reflects oneself accurately and not just visually. I found myself using that image over and over in my photographs as a reflection o f self on the American shore. Richard Avedon's inspiring photographs walk the fine line between fashion and fine art photography. He introduced the beauty o f movement to the still poses which dominated the fashion scene prior to his arrival. Through the choice o f high contrast printing he brought out the beauty in the history o f the human face through its roughness and surface texture. The figure against a white background become confrontational rather than fading into a black one. He gained even more respect from me by photographing ordinary people o f the West seeing their stunning visual qualities during the course o f their normal daily life. He did a lot for photography but what he did for my work was the idea o f extending the boundaries o f audiences. Avedon's photographs appeal to everyone through their associations with fashion photography. They pull people in with their beautiful print quality, full tonal range, brilliant contrast and the fully controlled lighting that brought out the three-dimensionality o f the human figure on a flat surface. They also appeal to the limited audiences o f fine arts critics and writers, due to the freshness of the idea he brought to photography. Since the arrival o f abstract expressionists, pop artists and, later on, conceptual artists, the art world continues to lose more and more audience. Many people do not feel comfortable in a contemporary art museum anymore due to their lack of understanding of contemporary art. I want people to look at my works and enjoy them with or without any academic understanding. I think good art should have multiple layers o f depth, multiple ways o f interpretation. The more you know, the more layers you can unwrap and find what's inside. That background knowledge should be optional, not required to be able to enjoy a particular piece. I want my photographs to carry the balance between aesthetic qualities and 10 conceptual understanding- a fine line that Richard Avedon discovered and perfected with his phenomenal photographic artworks. R ic h a r d a v e d o n , D o v im a w it h E l e p h a n t s , S i l v e r G e l a t i n p r i n t , 1955 11 I have always wanted to make my photographs look like a painting but my reasons remained unclear. Maybe because to draw was the first act o f creating a visual mark that we were exposed to as a child, we can all remember how free and how magical it was to illustrate with absolute certainty what's most important to us onto a blank page. Pablo Picasso once said every child is born an artist, the problem is to remain one once they grow up. Maybe it was my inability to draw academically or my envy o f the absolute control that a painter possesses over the making of his vision. It might be the higher appreciation most viewers automatically have looking at a painting compared to a photograph. Or was it genetic? My biological father was a highly accomplished painter. I know the answer lies somewhere in between. It was not the best motivation for working in an entirely new direction from my undergraduate work at the University of Utah, but it was that intuitional curiosity that later led to the creation o f a body of work that exceeded my initial expectations in every way. Unlike most photographers, I was exposed to Adobe Photoshop prior to a camera. This software was designed to be a digital photo editor but I used it like a digital art making program. Making has been always more true to me than capturing-the same reason I stand in front o f paintings longer than most photographs, the same reason the works o f the following painter brought tears to my eyes during my first encounter at New York's MoMA in March 2009. Jackson's Pollock's drip painting was one o f the reasons I make the work I am making now. We both see beauty in randomness. Action is always a big part o f our works since we both appreciate the unpredictability o f the movement o f paint and utilized them in our works somehow. In Pollock's works the paint was moving freely in the air until it hit the canvas and settled. I let acrylics open to movements and interactions with water and other pigments until I decide to release the shutter and preserved that moment forever. Pollock laid the canvas on the ground then came at it from all sides since he wanted to be a part o f the painting. I shot my photographs from above freeing paints and water of gravity's biased directionality. We both tied our identities to our works by organizing that chaos into something that is true to us. Pollock put randomness to extreme order in an overall composition. I collaged photographs o f moving paints into a barely recognizable shape of subject matters associated closely with traditional Chinese paintings. Pollock was not the only painter to utilize the overall composition in his abstract paintings but his works post 1945 such as Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 or Number 32 both in 1950 or even his pre-1945 works dominated by drips o f solid black paints often on to yellow canvas. That gesture o f paint carried extreme resemblance with marks found in Chinese calligraphy. That sepia canvas is not far from traditional Chinese paper or silk which later darken with time. What I saw in Pollock's number 32 specifically (whose reproduction can be found on the next page) was the deconstruction of calligraphic marks and the formation o f something else-something so extraordinary that it was thought o f as the height o f modernism with Jackson Pollock as its leader. Considering the close association between traditional Chinese painting and its calligraphy, I began to look at the process o f painting as a process o f constructing a somewhat recognizable shape using the elemental calligraphic marks. This moment o f recognition marked a signification turn in my approach to photography. I now think and work like a painter. The process o f painting is practically, not conceptually, about combining marks, while drawing is about combining lines. With enough marks a painter can portray just about anything. With enough photographs of paints moving freely in water I could later compose things that are beyond the boundaries o f photography such as a dragon, a landscape in the sky, an imaginary war tom area filled with burning trees and mushroom clouds. I give a physical form to my ideas in which people can now see, touch and be a part of. An intersection between me and you. 13 (ACKSON POLLOCK. N U M B E R J2.ERNAM LL O N CANVAS 1950 X% j W I s i |« Ye n > ii & * £ ^ $ k ii * 1 1 %t , i 5 ' f * 2 Y je n c h in g d u r in g t h e t a n g d y n a st y 14 PAREIDOLIA Is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images o f animals, o f faces in clouds or hearing telephone ring while in the shower. Psychologists hypothesized that as a survival technique, human beings are hard-wired from birth to identify the human face. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility but can also lead them to interpret random information to be significant. I can trace this back to the works I did during my undergraduate study when I turned curves from the human body into a landscape, and the works between my undergraduate and graduate studies when I turned random texture on walls and sidewalks into; yet another landscape. Before my first creation o f the photographic dragon I was able to identify random animals in the moving paint captured with my camera. Surprisingly, I did not get any human faces, but it seems that I was also hard-wired to find things that are significant to me or things that I love. This would be a scientific explanation o f the origin o f what later on became my MFA exhibition. The following images are those I shot and identified as animals. According to Sagan they scientifically, might have something to do with the fact that van chu. im a g in a r y l a n d sc a p e , 2 4 i n . x 16 i n . C - P r i n t 2008 15 I was a volunteer photographer for the Salt Lake Animal Services Shelter in 2008. van chu, w o rk in Pr o g r e s s - d o g , 2009 16 VAN C H U , W O RK I N PROGRESS - BIRD, 2 0 0 9 VAN C H U , W ORK I N PROGRESS - JELLY FISH VAN C H U , W O R K I N PROGRESS - BUFFALO VAN C H U , BODY LANDSCAPE, 2 0 0 6 17 They did make me pay more attention to the beautiful yet random pattern which occurred during my period o f experimentation. Pr o c e s s a n d m e t h o d o l o g y Due to my interest in painting, taking a painting class was a natural step after the exposure to the works o f Jackson Pollock. Within the first few weeks an extraordinary event took place that later opened my photographs to an entirely new direction. We each brought to class a bucket o f clear water so that we can keep our brushes wet while painting. I placed the brush filled with paint into the bucket for the first time and paint started to spread out as it came into contact with water. It was moving, it was an act o f creation, it was randomness that can be partly controlled with hand gesture and the ratio between water and paint. Fred Wright, a former photography professor at the University o f Utah once said I f you p a y close enough attention you might fin d a more interesting thing on your way to a gallery rather than what's in it. I find it extremely applicable to Photography as I believe it is a process o f transforming something from its ordinary nature into the extraordinary. A fine example would be intimate moments o f human bodies interacting or qualities o f a magnificently carved abstract sculpture found in a pepper masterfully shot and printed by Edward Weston in 1930. Using an 11” x 14” tray, I started to fill it with water and experiment with paints. Clear water did not work initially as it allowed light to go through showing the bottom o f the tray itself, it is extremely reflective and too much visual detail o f the acrylic got lost in clear water. I knew I needed something else. I started to mix mars black acrylic paint with water and the improvements clearly showed. Every bit o f visual detail o f white acrylic now was entirely visible to human eyes and to my digital camera. The reflection was still there but it could be digitally 18 E d w a r d W e s t o n , r E r r E R # 3 0 , s i l v e r g e l a t i n p r i n t , 1930 19 taken out afterward. I was extremely pleased with the result as it clearly showed the complex unpredictable reaction o f different colors o f paints along with their movements. Digitally, I could also bring out some very subtle details hidden in the photographs mostly by brightening the desired area while not affecting others. This process brought out a different technical issue o f this methodology: digital noise. Due to the structure o f an individual photosite: a micro light sensitive piece o f silicon which releases electrons when exposed to light. The nature o f how these electrons are released is linear: 2 photons o f light will release 2 electrons. Which means the camera will register double the value o f brightness when it's sensor exposed to double the amount o f light. This sounds scientifically logical but that is not how human eyes operate. When double the amount o f light is exposed to our light sensitive rods, the information will be registered in a logarithmic nature opposed to the linear nature o f digital sensors. The information within the shadow area will be expanded and those found in the highlight area will be compressed leading to our ability to see a broader range o f light. Digital cameras capture a much narrower range and what cannot be captured within the shadow area will be amplified and replaced with digital noise, a pattern o f red green and blue pixels. Images with digital noise look extremely unsatisfying. Because the majority o f my image at this point is black, it represented a huge technical challenge. Filling the tray with water mixed with white acrylic paint and pouring in black acrylic later solved the problem because now the majority o f the information in my photographs are within the highlight area (digital sensor's programmed to prioritize this). The outcome was a sharp, noise free and beautiful image resembling abstract paintings only much quicker, flat and duplicate-able. This way o f working also got rid o f reflections easily shown on a black flat and glossy surface o f the paint and water mixture. 20 I feel that Jackson Pollock made his name in the art world by giving chaos a sense o f order, a particular type o f order that makes sense to him. That choice o f working separated him from any other abstract painters. Anybody can drip paint onto canvas but the way Pollock did it made him the leader o f the abstract expressionism movement. Anybody can pour acrylic into water and photograph the result. This current state o f my work is then too simple, there has to be something else, something technically more sophisticated while conceptually linking the work with what defines me. VAN C H U , W O R K I N PROGRESS, PIG M EN T PRINT, EARLY 2 0 0 9 21 H is t o r ic a l c o n t e x t f o r t h e w o r k s I want to create a body o f photographs which again will bring traditions to the forefront while giving them a breath o f fresh air through the technological advances o f the twenty first century, a reminder that we are the intersections o f what came before us and what is yet to come. I was bom in Vietnam and came to the United States near the end o f December 2001. Opposed to what most people would think, Vietnam is a country o f multiple major influences including eleven centuries under Chinese influence from (111 BC - 938 AD) and later under France and America. Traces o f those historical impacts can still be found today as European and Chinese architecture stands side by side forming the city we know today as Hanoi. The Vietnamese language carries the pronunciation o f the Chinese language but is written in the Latin alphabet. The visual culture o f Vietnam is a harmonic mixture o f French impressionism and Chinese traditional ink paintings. My biological father was a painter and you would be able to see the clear European influences in his work, but what left a deeper mark in me was the Vietnamese interpretation o f Chinese landscape ink drawings and paintings with exaggerated proportions, large unpainted open paper surface along with minimum interest in perspective and shading. They were always charged with emotions. Is it the mountain standing straight up against an empty sky, is it the vast open landscape, is it the river usually accompanied by a small fishing boat, is it the scholar alone under the moon light or is it the lonely dead winter tree still left standing? Human elements in those paintings are always miniature compared to the landscape thus the solitary feeling is always underlined, an impression that I can strongly relate to after moving to the United States. Professor Joe Marotta once told his students You are not out there to photograph what the world looks like but what the world feels like and I took that saying to heart. I will always find the art o f Chinese paintings to be strikingly simple while remaining exquisite and powerful at the same time. They are landscapes o f the mind, an art that emphasizes emotions over illustration. Within the context o f Chinese traditional art; painting, calligraphy and poetry are the three sister arts and often called The Three Perfections. Chinese traditional paintings share the same bold and organic brushstroke o f calligraphy as it originated from calligraphy itself. That some Chinese characters are pictographic only furthermore strengthens the connection between its paintings and calligraphy. Visual quality, however, is not the only link between the three sisters. Chinese poetry as opposed to those o f the Western culture is heavily rhyme based. Each poem is composed much like a song to be sung without music. The first Chinese poem was written during the 4th century describing the beauty o f the land and the reflection o f human being in it. Since my intention was to bring traditions to the forefront again, paintings, calligraphy and poetry were the idea behind my first three bodies o f work which were heavily structured around these mediums and philosophy. The Land series was specifically created to resemble Chinese calligraphy. I turned that calligraphic gesture into a landscape and exposed the idea o f the pictographic nature of the art form. Mountains and Water both heavily resemble traditional Chinese paintings where a tree stands alone within a vast landscape accompanied by mountains going straight up in the background. The lone tree in my photographs are always small in scale compared to its surroundings reflecting the Chinese belief and my belief in the role o f the individual compared to the vast complexities o f the world. When a photograph is composed in this way, even though the tree tends to be the main focus o f the imagery, the picture then becomes about the relationship between that tree and the space around it. This compositional arrangement enhances the feeling o f isolation, o f me and the environment that I have yet become a part o f after almost a decade. Actual poetry, again one o f the Three Perfections, is not a part of 23 any o f these first three series but I find them very poetic. The scenery in these images are ideal, exaggerated and delicate with a subtle sense o f narrative, the very same qualities which can be found in an old Chinese poem. They are photographs yet they are not dominated by information resembling the real world counterpart because, just like Chinese paintings, calligraphy and poetry, they were designed to capture the essence o f things, not visual descriptive information of them. v a n C h u , La n d , 5 4 i n . x 16 i n . p i g m e n t p r i n t 2 0 0 9 Va n C h u , W a t e r , 3 8 in . x 16 in . p ig m e n t p r in t 2009 24 1 - I B M / ' k* 4 4 V an C hu, M o u n t a in s, ’* 36 in . x 24 in . p i g m e n t p r i n t 2009 25 Co n tem po ra ry c o n tex t fo r th e w o rks In 1975, Steven Sasson invented the world's first digital camera while working for Kodak. The proposal for mass development o f the project was turned down because o f the position Kodak was in at the time as the largest producer o f photo chemical products. Fast forward to the year 2010 when most people own at least one digital camera o f some kind, and the process of image capturing and making has become much easier and we are documenting in far more detail than ever before. But what exactly does easier mean in the context of photography in the twenty first century? The process o f digital printing however is still struggling to match the quality o f a black and white silver print. Whilst most people use a digital camera as an easy alternative to traditional film photography because it is quicker, easier and cheaper yet they don't seem to realize that they possess the tool to free photography more than ever before. Each medium has its pros and cons. Using digital photography to make straight photographs competing with silver gelatin photography is simply using the weakness o f one medium to compete with the strength of the other. But combined with Photoshop, a virtual darkroom, digital photography is now open to a new world o f possibilities. Photographers today are not limited by physical restrictions of reality or boundaries associated with their medium o f choice. And that's how I fit in as a fine art photographer o f the twenty first century. I use digital photography process to my advantage. I tailor or combine techniques and mediums to execute my idea without narrowing my concepts to fit my initial medium o f choice. I find myself moving farther and farther away from traditional photographic subject matter as my vision can no longer be expressed by any single medium alone. My last work, which I still regret not being able to include in my MFA thesis show due many technical limitations o f the venue, was a two minute video in which photography, videography, music and painting can all be found in a harmonic composition. 26 > ' L' ■ D RA G O N The Chinese Dragon is a mythical creature with the ability to control rain, flood and wells. In contrast to the image of the dragon breathing fire found in western cultures, the Chinese dragon has always been an iconic image o f the East, symbolizing auspicious, potent and good luck. It is powerful, organic and abstracted and because o f that ideal quality it is something much larger than life. The same qualities I aimed to portray in my depiction o f an eastern dragon through the abstract moving brushstroke of organic and uncontrollable movements o f water. 1 composed my first image o f a dragon also in water as the paint slowly became the shape o f its head and then went away in a matter of seconds. I released the shutter and preserved that moment. As much as I wanted to have absolute control over my way of working, a great degree o f luck was still involved, allowing magical things to happen, things that are beyond my predetermined vision. In Chinese legend there was an artist hired to paint murals on a temple’s walls. He ended up painting many beautiful yet powerful dragons covering that whole surface but leaving out the pupils o f their eyes. The abbot asked him to explain his unusual decision and he expressed that if those eyes were painted the dragons would come alive and fly away. The abbot insisted that the dragons must be fully completed so the artist ended up finished painting a dragon with its full facial features. As soon as he finished, the dragon came to life and flew away in a thunderous flash o f lighting. This story embodied the philosophy o f the art o f traditional Chinese painting as described by Tim Wong and Akiko Hirano “The goal is not simply to reproduce the appearance o f the subject, bat to capture its soul. To paint a horse, the artist must understand its temperament better than its muscles and bones. To paint a flower, there is no need to perfectly match its petals and colors, but it is essential to convey its liveliness and fragrance ” 21 I was deeply influenced by that philosophy yet found it contradicted with what we usually think of as photography, a tool designed to replicate reality. But it seems that traditional Chinese ink painters share the same philosophy with what I interpreted from professor Joe Marotta's philosophy mentioned above. It was that story, that philosophy that influenced my decision to leave the eyes absent from the dragon's figures. I came from the country of Vietnam and the image of a dragon is something you can find in both Chinese and Vietnamese cultures. The country of Vietnam from an aerial view resembles the shape of the letter S, a shape that I composed Dragon 2 after, a subtle narrative, a hint of the origin o f the artist. VAN C H U , D R A G O N 2, 50" X 24" PIG M ENT PR IN T 2 0 1 0 28 V an C hu, D r a g o n s , so i n . x 2 4 i n . p i g m e n t P r i n t 2010 29 M u sh r o o m s a n d Trees Mushrooms and Trees is the last body of work I created in the MFA program. The piece that was completed fourteen days before the opening o f the exhibition turned out to be my strongest work in the MFA show, and arguably the best artwork that I have ever produced. On the surface, visually speaking the work shares very little similarity with my earlier work, but conceptually it does not depart from my eastern philosophy. Yin and Yang is the most iconic and recognizable symbol in eastern philosophy. Yin and Yang are complimentary opposites within a greater whole. Yin and Yang have the exact same shape but carry opposite values and meanings. They stand for good & evil, life & death, cause & effect. Yin and Yang represent the essence o f things believed to be found in all. They are dependent opposing forces that flow in a natural cycle, always seeking balance and never existing in stasis. Energy is a good and beautiful thing pushing the developments o f mankind forward allowing us to have the comfort o f a modem life, to enjoy the power over many forces o f nature never thought controllable. But it was also developed into the most deadly force ever known to man. Trees on the other hand are always associated with the living, nature, peace and harmony. They have been here since the earliest days o f existence and continue to keep the planet alive by converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, and becoming homes and feeding grounds for most species including those o f man. Trees have always been the symbol of life while mushroom clouds after 1945 can certainly be considered a symbol o f death. Mushrooms and trees are essentially the same thing as natural organic plants but interestingly enough through time and the course o f history the meanings associated with them opposed each other. If my early works were portraits o f physical self then my later works became portraits of my belief. I believe in cause and effect and think that we should retain a balance with nature within the circle o f life. I also went back in a full circle o f conceptual development where I 30 started out consciously using the lone tree and ended up coming back to it unconsciously. Mushrooms & Trees is aesthetically pleasing yet conveys sadness-visually crowded yet lonely. They are at rest in nature yet portray a sense o f constant shifting. It is peaceful yet deadly, quiet yet thunderous. It is a conclusion that exceeded my initial expectation in every way. * * r * I 5 van chu, M u shroo m s n : t r e e s 2 , 1 6 0 i n . x 2 4 i n . p i g m e n t p r i n t 2010 D e t a il 31 V an C h u , M u s h ro o m s n ' T r e e s , 160 i n . x 2 4 i n . p i g m e n t P r i n t 2 0 1 0 D e ta il 32 C O N C LU SIO N The last two years have been a very valuable time for me. With the unconditional help and support o f people whom I was lucky enough to befriend, professors that I was so fortunate to work with, I graduated having learned so much which not only made me a better artist but also a better human being. No, it was not smooth sailing. There were times I felt like crying, times I felt like throwing up and times I felt that I had worked so hard to achieve nothing. But it took the bad times to get to the good ones. It took bad images to get to good photographic artworks. Professor Kim Martinez once told her students, me included, that; "The only difference between you and me is that I ’ve made more bad paintings" and she was right. During the course o f graduate school I never stopped experimenting with new mediums and new ideas in order to find my own voice as an artist in this ever changing and competitive world. And I have found it. My works are telling the stories I grew up listening to, but in a newly discovered visual language, one that all generations can comprehend and relate to. My experience o f living in America, a fast moving place with so many different cultures, values and ideas, is much like looking at a Pollock painting. Often times it is not far from total chaos it is also one that we can often find order. The trick is to pick what is right for you, put it into perspective and leave out the rest. Among those things I have learned here, the most important was not to forget who I am, where I came from and treat it as an advantage, not a disadvantage. Verbal communication might not be my strength but what I exceed at is visual communication. I hope that by looking at my photographs you can see what I see, hear what I hear and feel what I feel. Body is where the mind and the world collide. I believe that good art is an extension o f the mind to the physical world; it can be looked at, touched, brought home and talked about. An artwork is an intersection between you and me, and we are the intersection of what came before us and what is yet to come. 33 V a n C h u , D r a g o n , 80 in . x 24 in . p i g m e n t P r i n t 2010 deta il 34 v* « n ' * wv: t s & m fW v a n c h u . L a n d s c a p e , 8 0 in. x 2 4 in . p ig m e n t p r i n t 2 0 1 0 DETAIL r f* ' * » y * w v a n C h u , O c e a n , 80 in . x . 2 4 in . P i g m e n t p r i n t 2010 L 'l DETAIL 36 Ap p e n d i x Sa l t lake C it y P u b l i c L ib r a r y - l o c a t io n o f Ex h i b i t i o n 37 INSTALLATION VIEW 1 OF PH O T O G R A PH IC BRUSHSTROKE In s t a l l a t io n v ie w 2 of P h o t o g r a p h i c Br u s h s t r o k e 38 INSTALLATION VIEW 3 OF PH O TO G R A PH IC BRUSHSTROKE INSTALLATION VIEW 4 OF PH O T O G R A PH IC BRUSHSTROKE 39 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY H e a r n , M axwell, h o w t o Read C h in e s e p a i n t i n g s , t h e M e t r o p o l it a n museum of ART, N e w YORK 20 08 SILBERGELD, JEROME. C H IN ESE PA IN T IN G STYLE. UNIVERSITY OF W A S H IN G T O N PRESS 1 98 2 em m erlin g , Le o n h a r d . J a c k s o n P o l l o c k - a t t h e Li m i t o f Pa i n t i n g . T a s c h e n 2 0 0 9 T UNG, W U . TALES FROM THE LAND OF D RAGONS - 1 0 00 YEARS OF CHI NESE PAINTING. M u s e u m o f F i n e A r t s Bo s t o n 1997 BARNHART, RICHARD. W IN T RY FORESTS, O L D TREES. C H I N A INSTITUTE IN AMERICA 1972 M i c h a u d , Sa b r i n a - M i c h a u d , R o l a n d . C h i n a i n a m i r r o r , f l a m m a r i o n 2 0 0 8 40