Double Square 双方藝廊

Double Square Gallery is delighted to present Fu Ning’s solo exhibition – Crying is due to the glitch of messages that dazzle the eyes, which will run from October 26 to December 7, 2023. In her first solo exhibition at Double Square Gallery, the artist exhibits more than twenty works, including two-dimensional paintings and sketch drawings. Focusing on people’s life experiences, Fu gathers fragmented everyday images as her primary creative material to explore how the human self is shaped in this era of the internet and virtuality. In this exhibition, she uses the complex biological action of “crying” as a metaphor for the creative process. Through vibrantly intense colors as well as bold, dynamic brushstrokes, Fu delineates the phenomenon of fragmentation resulting from this era of information overload, and captures how images flow in the moments of viewing, not only reflecting the social phenomenon informing the life of Generation Z, but also reconsidering the interpretation of the experience of viewing.

In Crying is due to the glitch of messages that dazzle the eyes, Fu uses “crying” as a metaphor for the obsession, frivolity, anxiety, self-complacency, and restlessness in the creative process to explore the feelings and emotions triggered by the flood of information in life, while proposing her rethinking and interpretation of the viewing experience. Crying is considered a way of expressing human emotion, which is characterized by the flowing of tears from lacrimal glands. However, can any emotionally induced action of shedding tears be called crying? Regarding this question, people tend to interpret using different words.

On the other hand, the term “glitch” usually hints at “dysfunction” in Fu’s work, and in the context of this exhibition, is understood in a material sense so as to describe the strong but blurry images in memory appearing during quickly browsing through uninteresting information. Through her seemingly abstract painting style, the artist converts the impression of fleeting images into fluid, twisting brushstrokes, utilizing layers of paint in various thickness and a vivid color contrast to display a sense of speed in a textural way, deconstructing and reconstructing the visual impression inexpressible by language. At the same time, she also combines internet memes and cultural image macros derived from the interaction within the echo chamber of the young generation to connect and resonate with her audience.

The title of the exhibition reveals the overall narrative basis of the works. Depicting how people rely on filters to beautify their otherwise bland life on social media, awkward and treacherous moments of ruined panoramic photos, as well as memes and image macros that briefly dispel the bitterness of life, these subjects demonstrate the artist’s sarcastic humor and mockery targeting at the social media platforms overloaded with information, which also serve as her responses and comments on this era.