Unlocking the Mysteries of 'Third Space'
Initiated and organized by The Bridge Arts Foundation, the 'Beyond Borders' Global Young Artist Open-Call Exhibition is currently being held at The Scholart Selection Art Space in San Gabriel, California, and will run until December 31, 2023.
Bridge Arts Foundation's Art Director, Tia Xu, engaged in a conversation about the exhibition and art with several artists participating in this exhibition. In this interview, we have the pleasure of speaking with Los Angeles-based Chinese artist Guigen Zha.
—— Q&A ——
Tia Xu: Could you please share your background and what inspired you to pursue a career in art?
Guigen Zha: My name is Guigen Zha (Chinese, born in 1970). I have been fond of painting since I was a child, and have been dedicated to pursuing painting as a lifelong career. I worked as an art teacher, animation background artist, and graphic designer for many years in Nanjing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai before continuing my formal education in the United States with a BFA from Missouri State University in 2014 and an MFA in painting from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2018. I am currently living in Los Angeles.
Third Space. Breathing, photo courtesy of the artist.
Tia: What does "Beyond Borders" mean to you, and how does your work in this exhibition either reflect or challenge this concept?
Guigen: “Beyond borders” to me means across cultural contexts. My study and life experience in China and the United States have made me more able to accept and implement the creative techniques of Eastern and Western art schools. In this exhibition, my Third Space series works (Gate and Breathing) both use creative techniques similar to surrealism and postmodern art schools, which synthesize different artistic traditions and spatial relationships in the digital age.
Tia: Can you tell us the story behind a specific artwork from the exhibition?
Guigen: Of course. Among the works I participated in the exhibition, I would like to highlight "Third Space. Gate". The painting comes as the California Legislature debates the issue of reparations for African Americans because their ancestors were enslaved in U.S. history.
The Gate was inspired by Dali’s “Slave Market With the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire”. The painting depicts a slave market, while a woman at a booth watches the people. A variety of people seem to make up the face of Voltaire, while the face seems to be positioned on an object to form a bust of Voltaire. Voltaire was a French writer and philosopher known for his opposition to slavery. I used the painting as a reference and involved myself in it to give it a new undertone. The work created an atmospheric mood that I had to rethink a racial issue with Assembly Bill 3121 and “the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans” in California.
Pose & perform, photo courtesy of the artist.
Tia: Are there any artists or art movements that have had a significant influence on your work? If so, why?
Guigen: In addition to traditional Chinese traditional paintings, Cubist painter Picasso, Surrealist painters Dali and Marguerite, and Performance artist Marina Abramović have had an important impact on my works.
Many Cubist artists look for the style of fragmentation, abstraction, and composing different elements into one work. Having been inspired by cubism, my work brings different views of the subjects together in the same picture as a way to capture the complexity of the images.
In addition, Surrealism opened up my curiosity.
Moreover, Performance art (especially in the 1970s) evokes self-consciousness and challenges the existing laws of society. These performance artworks are thought-provoking and made me pay attention to the connection between the works and contemporary life.
Third Space. The Loneliness, photo courtesy of the artist.
Tia: What materials and techniques do you prefer to use in your art, and could you explain your choices?
Guigen: As is my interest, I have been trying to incorporate new spatial concepts into my works that integrate Cubism, Surrealism, and Performance art. And use them to establish my painting style. This resulted in my current series "Third Space".
I mainly used Appropriation and Performance Art “techniques” in my art.
Appropriation is a term in postmodernism, which refers to using existing images with a certain degree of transformation of the original. The artists’ act of transforming the original is an intentional questioning of the reliability of the so-called ‘truth’. This practice has been used extensively in contemporary art. I use the practice of appropriation in Third Space because this allows the recycling of the past culture that witnesses our addiction to the past. In my opinion, the image will lose its intended meaning if the appropriation is simply a direct borrowing. The Third Space deconstructs the original symbols through image overlapping, creates new images, and gives a new interpretation of the traditional cultural symbols. These could be considered as a kind of modern reconstruction.
Then I started practicing Performance Art (interacting with images through posing). My practice of appropriation is using projection to overlap the digital images on physical objects. This kind of overlapping using audio-visual technologies has changed the original digital images and the physical objects respectively. Each of the newly constructed overlapping parts produces a new image, which is what I conceptualize as the ‘new space.’ This approach encourages imagination and produces new image correlations and therefore the overlapping of story plots through which narratives of story plots are deconstructed and re-constructed to become even more dramatic. My practice of using nude self-portraits to interrupt the background scene and the specific color scheme highlights the illusory effects of the overlaps. The correspondence and contradictions resulting from the overlapping produce a ‘buffer zone’, which generates associated and vivid images. However, the use of hand gestures and body postures are somewhat disconnected from the background to create an odd yet dramatic result.
As I explained, I use projection and overlapping of images to create absurdity and ‘new space’. Which captures a world of illusionary and contradiction through a pictorial structure that fuses time and space. The Third Space used elements from different styles of staggered fusion to reflect a new concept of space and time. It embodies a brand new spatial concept that integrates Cubism, Surrealism, and (theatrical) performance art. It expresses an illusionary and paradoxical world. —— Most concepts and theories come from Guigen Zha’s MFA thesis “Illusion” (2018)
Third Space. Yellow, photo courtesy of the artist.
Tia: Can you share a particular piece of feedback or a comment from an art critic, art professional, or even the audience that has profoundly impacted you?
Guigen: "Los Angeles-based artist Guigen Zha's surrealistic figurative paintings are a fusion of artistic traditions from both Eastern and Western cultures. His work transcends boundaries, creating a visual language that is both contemporary and otherworldly. With a rich cross-cultural background, Guigen's art offers viewers a unique perspective on the human experience." —— From the Curate LA
ABOUT OPEN CALL EXHIBITION PROGRAM
Bridge Arts Foundation's "Beyond Borders" Open Call Exhibition Installation View, Photo: © The Scholart Selection / Luna Hao
Bridge Arts Foundation's Open Call Exhibition Program is designed to provide support for early-career artists. For its inaugural edition, the "Beyond Borders" Open Call Exhibition has thoughtfully selected 18 talented artists from a pool of approximately 350 submissions, employing a selection process that involves art professionals. "Beyond Borders" opens from October 14th to December 31st, 2023.
ABOUT ARTIST
Guigen Zha
Guigen Zha was born in Nanjing, China, and spent his early artistic career working as an art instructor, animation background artist, and graphic designer in Nanjing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. He came to the United States in 2011 and completed his MFA at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2018.
Zha’s paintings have been selected for many exhibitions and awards, for example, the Second Asian Art Biennial in Hong Kong; Harmony: Contemporary Chinese Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and in Beijing of China Oil Painting Institute Art Museum; Dynamics: Chinese Contemporary Oil Painting Research Exhibition, Kunstraum Villa Friede, Bonn, Germany; Winner of the 50th, 54th Creative Quarterly International Art Competition in New York; the Zhou B Spirit Award at the National Wet Paint MFA Biennial 2018 in Chicago; and selected on the cover of Circle Quarterly Art Review magazine in 2021. His works and artistic achievements have been published in China Daily, Chinese L.A. Daily, Contemporary Oil Painting, Global Art, et al.
Zha's paintings are rooted in his cross-cultural life experience, superimposing Eastern subject matter and aesthetics with Western techniques and conceptual approaches. His works pursue an aesthetic feeling of illusory naturalism.