The Gigantic Unknown – Exploring the Connection between the World of Perception and Reality via Creative Practice

[[abstract]]This research starts from the clarification of the methods how one perceives the world and, by means of creative practice as well as analytical writings about the creative ideas and thoughts during the process, aims to explore the transformation stages and outcomes of how painting actualizes the invisible world of perception into reality. The series of works inspired by the visual experience at high altitudes and the creative process are the cases studied in this project. The analysis of perception is carried out from the angle of phenomenology, focusing especially on the method of how an individual interprets the world. The discussions are directed at four topics: the unknown, vision (or “seeing”), events and elements. Vision does not simply refer to the visual experience obtained by visual perceptive organs. As a verb, it is the method to pursue “the unknown ,” which means to actively change the way in which one perceives the world in order to challenge the conventional interpretations about the world; as a noun, it refers to the purpose of pursuing “the unknown”, the realm reached by the pursuit of alternative perceptible interpretations. As it comes to interpreting personal experience, the author takes “events” as the viewpoint of understanding the perceptive interpretations from an overall angle. In addition, with the concepts of “elements” and “chains of relations,” which connect “elements” to make “element sets,” the aforementioned perceptive interpretations are dismantled and transformed into creative parts. Having been transformed, the “elements” in perception become the essentials of creative production. Plane painting media have the quality of a vector which connects perception and the real world and is explicitly revealed in the painting language system presented in the pictures. Semiotics is applied here in the discussion, which also includes the comparison of the perceptive operations between the language systems of paintings and words. In the analysis of the serial works, the painting language systems in the paintings are further classified into “shapes”, “lines”, “colors” and “viewpoint”. The four essentials symbolize the body, bones, skin and eyes of the creative works, whilst the perceptive interpretations and creative ideas could be seen as the life-giving spirit of the works.