CC He
<Artist Statment>
"Having been influenced by a culmination of different cultures and traditional techniques, I like to bring different worlds together to create attractive visual images, especially in a way that is reflecting childlike fun-ness. The pure fun, which certainly reminds me of the dream-like childhood, I always see people’s ability to act humorously comes from their childhood: either it is a good one to make them happy or it is a regret, which urges them seeking for fun to cover it up. Fortunately, my fabulous childhood gives me an unlimited source to live in a funny fashion. Such a lifestyle supports my creativity, as the best tool to influence my surroundings. So, I believe that it is crucial to put my sense of fun into my artworks, which reflects a large portion of myself in a fanciful way.
Mix-media painting and illustration are the mediums that I usually work with, while the character design and potential narrative are my constant topics. The characteristics of my childlike fun-ness are conveyed in many different ways such as the usage of vivid colors, cartoony imagery, and comics because those attempts could be easily transferred into the personification of playfulness, cuteness, and seriousness.
I believe that seeking a story is a subconscious instinct deeply buried in every human being, just like there is always an immortal childlike innocence beyond us as adults deadly walking. It is no longer a hard mission for us as artists to try so hard on figuring out how to begin creating the logic of new concepts. There is a Chinese saying: “If there are a thousand readers, there are a thousand Hamlet.” Viewers could drag their shadows into my works and interactively explore my potential fun as individuals, all I need to do is showing personal ideas or sharing inspirations. In this way, I secretly excite the childishness of the audience’s inner world, which maximizes my purpose of creation: to affect and to change the absurdly sad world.
In many of my figurative paintings, whether it is focused on the usage of pop color or the loud compositional movement, I show the personal interpretation of popular arts: the wild tension, the honest and confident presenting, and the special appeal of popular products. The pop spirit of my comprehension lies in its transitivity, for which I am even not afraid to express monsters inside of myself; I feel safe and happy to share personal preference because everything could be delivered to others in a pop context, including the core value of my fun-ness and inner negativity: I use what I like about pop arts’ form as a touch of sarcasm to question what I dislike about it due to its commercialization. To discuss popular contexts, as an expression of my sequential works, is also an essential method for me to not only create comics with speaking myself but also build emotional connections between the various audiences.
Communication, sometimes, does not need to be spoken in words, rather it can be a simple reaction to a piece of artwork made with fun and pride."
