Elise Dahan

In Eugene Wang’s article, Inkscape and Mindscape: Liu Kuo-Sung's “Abstraction,” Wang introduces the reader to Kuo-Sung's work. While describing some of his works Wang uses the term “clump in the breast” to describe some of the visual “blockages” in Kuo-Sung's paintings. Although Wang is writing about this notion in 2023, Wang tells us that Chinese artists have been contemplating and creating in response to this feeling since the 3rd century In his essay, Wang quotes the Qing Dynasty artist Wu Changshuo, “[I] drank ink with abandon, so I may spit out the clump in my breast.”[1]

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I was very intrigued by this term when I read Wang’s article, not because the idea is entirely new to me (that artists are attempting to express their discontent), but the specificity of the language struck me, the physicality of it. This idea also seemed to parallel what we have discussed over the course of the semester, thinking about calligraphers and painters as attempting to communicate an interior space of the mind and body through the brush and from the brush onto the paper. I was also struck by the subjects in Liu Kuo-Sung’s work and I created a painting inspired by Kou-Sung’s moons, mountains and color palette. I also chose to employ the traditional landscape colors of green and blue.

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In my work I often use text, and while creating this painting and thinking about the notion, “ clump in the breast ”, I envisioned a horse galloping through these mountains which is why it is titled, For the Horse . Someone once told me that I am like a “wild horse” (mostly, I just have commitment issues) and while I don’t know if that is accurate, I do feel like most of us are asked to negotiate or silence our own “wild horse.” Through this work, I am reminded to not forget mine.

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[1] Eugene Wang, "Inkscape and Mindscape: Liu Kuo-sung's Abstraction," in Liu Kuo-sung: Experimentation as Method (Singapore: National Gallery Singapore), 42–61.