凝視 / Into the Emptiness

This time, I asked Koul to portrait the grey fox with an imaginary scene.

這次我委託 Koul，將小灰狐投射在我所想像的情景中。

Into the Emptiness

We all have different walks of life, and our unique life experiences shape our point of views. To some extent, those reactions to the artwork either reveal the viewers’ emotional state, their life status, or their believes or values at the moment. Such fact makes comment reading very interesting, especially when the comments are unexpected to me or different from my own perspective.

Some people think the grey fox must be feeling content after working for long hours and rewards himself with a warm comfy bath; some people think the artwork emits a calm and peaceful atmosphere; some people simply love the masculine figure of the cute handsome grey fox (which I love for sure uwu). Very few of them sense the moody emotion through the slight hint from the frowning eyebrows.

Yes, to me it’s a moody artwork. Yet this time, there is no direct reference to any point of my life.

The artwork is more of an imagination than a real scene or true story, like I personally do not have such colorful mosaic bathtub in my home. My dad’s eldest brother’s home did have that kind of bathtub, but I never have a chance to use it or even take a hot bath in it. By the way, this kind of bathtub was once pretty popular in Taiwan like before 80s or sth. Mosaic tiles were pretty common back then and were heavily applied to the wall of buildings, like my elementary school used to have a very long mosaic tile artwork that attaches to the wall that encloses the campus.

Anyway, back to the artwork. The bathtub scene was hugely inspired from a poster of a TV drama in Taiwan “On Children“. The drama is composed of 5 independent stories that portrait the issues of “diplomaism" and test-oriented education system. One of the episode has the scene that shows a teenage boy lies in the colorful mosaic bathtub and stares at the ceiling with a pair of hollow eyes, just like this piece of artwork.

As I picture the grey fox in that scene, I started to imagine myself lying in that bathtub and eyes wandering without focusing. I figure that I can relate to that scene pretty well:

Life is hard and love is far;
Nothing heals the bleeding scar.
Down the pitch-dark emptiness;
Everything is meaningless.

Funny that even I really dislike the moment when my mind is occupied with emptiness and then followed by deep sadness. I kind of in love with that state of mind. Sometimes I even miss the aching feelings of being hopelessly sad, as if I could peel the layers of depression off and see me, the grey fox, lying in there crying, or as if melancholy partly defines myself.

I do know that keep feeling down is definitely not a good idea in terms of both mental and physical health, and that’s why I keep a record here, to remind myself the shortcut to the sadness if I feel the need to, and to remind myself that being sad is okay, just don’t over do it.

I hope the viewers could enjoy the artwork, no matter which perspective they take. Thank you. 🦊

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凝視

其實原本心裡想的構圖不是長這樣的。原本只是很單純地打算就構一張自己躺在床上抱狼葛格的圖這樣，後來可能是虛榮心作祟的關係，在看了其他同一個繪師的委託作品之後，覺得構圖上還是要有一點藝術感，才不會辜負這個繪師的才能。當然其他的作品也有很居家的⋯⋯總之就是跟自己心裡過不去的概念。

因為我排在所有委託者的後面，所以我有蠻多時間可以醞釀我想要呈現什麼樣的作品。然後就想到《媽媽的遙控器》裡的紀培偉的那張宣傳海報。

當下其實沒有想太多我跟這位紀培偉的關聯，只覺得這張海報的元素我很喜歡——台灣早期家裡會有的拼貼浴缸、鮮明的色彩與對比、凝視著虛無的眼神。

然後我開始把自己投射在這位浴缸裡的紀培偉。當然我並沒有跟他一模一樣的故事，我也從來沒有企圖自殺過（沒那個勇氣）；不過那種被現實生活擠壓地喘不過氣，難得可以躺在舒服的浴缸裡泡澡休息的時候，腦袋裡的思緒卻不停地運轉，轉入眼前深邃的黑暗的感覺，我其實是很熟悉的。我想無論是誰，總是會有那麼幾段人生切片，是連自己也不願回首的，因為實在是不想要再讓自己被吸入那曾經的黑暗中。

但或許，或許那黑暗，或許那黑暗帶給我的那難以言喻的哀愁，其實是我懷念的，我嚮往的，我珍視的。

我想或許是因為，我太習慣那種感覺了，以致於在那黑暗中，我可以找到我自己。這些複雜而憂鬱的人生切片，看似難以下嚥，我卻能夠享受那個悲傷的情境。

當然，我也很清楚，既然是回顧自己的人生片段，那也就表示沒有必要完全沈浸在其中。我喜歡悲傷的情緒，但假戲成真非我所願。

這個委託作品大概是想要呈現這種感覺。不過看其他人對這個作品的想法也是蠻有趣的。大部分的人除了稱讚繪師畫得很棒、喜歡這隻灰狐角色之外，對於背後的故事多半都是呈現正面的態度。其實這樣也挺好的。他們既然在這個作品當中感受到放鬆、平靜與愉悅的氛圍的話，那就這樣吧。

總之希望你們喜歡這個作品。 🦊