Talk to Artist | Gongmo Zhou: Between Surface and Interface | Interview on Art Yourself Atelier

Gongmo: I have a strong interest in screen, whether it is the digital screen in the narrow sense, or any regular or irregular plane that hinders, reflects, or complicates the light. They are almost omnipresent in my life, and I can hardly ignore their existence, or pass by them without noticing the agency they’ve brought into the interaction with light. I left home when I was an undergrad, and then I moved to Nantes in 2018. Since then, all the communications with my family occur within the narrow range of the screen surface. Our physical existences haven’t touched each other, but our digital imageries, or if you see it as a pseudo imagery, are blended on the surface.

Also during the years of the pandemic, I feel many of my sensual faculties have been further deprived. The vision through screens seems to become a major way of me sensing the world. I have become growingly dependent on the images presented on the surface, and growingly interested in how the reflections on the surface bring two separate dimensions together. As of right now I think all that’s left in my work is the image of the “pseudo imagery”, a reflection on reflections.

Gongmo: I think the earlier series you referred to is from 2020 to 2021. This series is exclusively about surface, like the oily, slightly reflective surface of a soft face cream that has the textured ruffles like a micro canyon, like the misty plastic shower curtain with scattered beads of water. And again, the surface of the steel oil drums, the pearl. In retrospect I feel the series on surface is probably a preface to my wider interest in interface. It is more natural and intuitive, without having to philosophize anything. It’s just me, forced to stay at home during the pandemic, and there’s not much to see, just the mundane objects that have stopped being interesting to you from a long time ago. Amid the boredom I was trying to find a way to reactivate and maximize my sensibility, and my method is to defamiliarize myself from the objects so I can observe them again.

And then I proceed into interface and reflection. To have the reflection, there needs to be a physical surface and a reflected imagery on the surface. The former is completely physical, and the imagery is just an image of an absent physical object. Right now in my work I tend to adjust more emphasis on the imagery per se, and try to lower the existence of the physical surface. I want to make it more about the reflection rather than the interface that bears the reflection. I want to paint it in a way that it’s only the reminiscence of the physical beings while they are factually absent. And the transition from surface to interface is also a process that witnesses the fading of the physical part. But still, they’re not completely gone. An interface is still primarily a surface, a surface that lays itself open to the light. Therefore, in the series about door and screen, there’s still an attention to the physical texture and material. The fingerprints, the dirt, they are all suggesting the physical passé compose before the imagery formation.

Gongmo: I’d say I’m still balancing between the two methods. To some extent, I want to preserve the texture given by the paint, because the paint itself is a very eloquent expression of the factual materiality of my work, something nostalgic and suggestive of the old, physical world. Meanwhile, there are also times when I want to push the effect of a digital image to the extent, to flat out every irregular detail and smooth up the canvas as if it’s a glass screen. These are two extremes, representing two dimensions that I want to find an expression for. I will still be fumbling forward with every frame till I arrive at a point where I can feel the canvas has become quiet, and the two dimensions as well. They will only be quiet when they are completed through a correct expression.

Gongmo: Most of the time I am painting a photograph instead of an actual object. And the photographs are just like my painting, they’re a presentation, different from the actual things that are presented. Painting a photograph is to create a presentation of a presentation. I like to question the realness in the infinite mirroring and reflection of images, and strangely, the further I get with presenting presentations, the closer I feel with the things being presented.

I didn’t come to a creating process like this in the first place. At the very beginning I just had the vague idea that I’d like to paint the reflections on the surface and a preparation towards that was to randomly take photographs here and there, collecting images of all kinds of reflecting surface. It gradually grew into a large, complicated collection, and in the process of categorizing the photographs, I was getting closer to the specific kind of reflecting surface I’d like to paint – that is the reflection on doors and windows. Doors and windows as an interface can be very irregular, the reflections on them will not be a definitive, substantial images. And the distance and uncertainties are something I can observe for a long time.

There are times when I think photograph has exceeded eyes and become my primary way of observing. Most of the time in life I’m looking at images, and even for the tangible things they will be ultimately presented as an image on the retina. I spend more time with images and I’m facing way more images than actual things. The process of creating an image of an imagery feels to me like an epistemological inquiry – can jumping from one presentation to another derive any actual knowledge of the world? Does it present the actual process of knowing? And in the journey along and across presentations, are we closer to the things represented or further?

Gongmo: Yes, and intentionally so. I’m trying to replicate the photographic language wherever the camera is the primarily way of observation, and to allow my eyes and hands to learn the language of a photograph. I like to imitate the falling out of focus, the changing of the depth of field when the aperture is adjusted. This method is not only about the concept, it is also more sensorily true to me. I cannot see things clearly without my glasses, and I’m often without them. The camera guides my vision, it is an artificial eye in a sense.

Gongmo: I have a very personal interest on photography, and in the second year at Nantes I did spend a semester on photography. But my eyes responded to things very slow, like that of an old man. Many times when things passed by in front of me, I didn’t even have the time to see them clearly before pressing the shutter. So I guess the slow, brewing process of painting fits me better.

Gongmo: Yes, and not only different but almost opposite. When I was at school in Beijing, most of the training was on sketching – to paint a three-dimensional object on the canvas. And when things didn’t go smooth, I would be surrounded by the self-doubt that I was flattening the painted objects, reducing their dimensions. To paint a photograph is more comforting in this sense: I was adding to the digital photograph the thingness of the canvas, the physicality of the pigment. I was adding more senses to it.

That being said, I still think I should not overstate the difference between the two methods. Whether it’s sketching or working from a photograph, there’s always some kind of constraints and freedom. And as you spend more time on that, you become more at ease with the method, the greater creative freedom will fall upon you. At the beginning, when I was drawing from photos, I had the tendency of replicating an almost identical photograph on the canvas, and I was quite caught up among many details. As I got more used to the process, I gradually became more confident about leaving out some aspects and presenting them as an imagery of an image, rather than a replicate of a photograph.

I’m also cautious not to overstate the difference because photos have also more or less become a part of the artistic process for many contemporary painters. Painting, as a relatively ancient process, also changes along with the way we perceive and understand the world. One of the more common ways photos are used today is during the conceptual sketching phase, where artists experiment with different surrealist compositions by editing or collaging photos. In a sense, they are also “working from a photograph”, but the photograph is more functional than conceptual.

Gongmo: The group of works are about my partner, and yes, to me they also gesture an exploration on surface. At the very core, surface is about distance. My interest on the theme originated from the distance between me and my family. The interface of the mobile devices, the doors, and the windows, they signify the long distance. And this group of painting is the closest I can get, an exploration about the close distance in a relationship. Since it is very intimate, private in a sense, I chose the size that feels equally personal to me.

Gongmo: I think the voyeurism may start much earlier in the process. As I collected the photographs, the people who were portrayed were not aware of me taking the photos. They were not consciously being observed, and this made my perspective slightly secret. Meanwhile, the surface I’ve painted is the front door, and on the upper corner there’s a peephole. There’s a voyeurism being projected outward from the painting. The perspective places me and the objects in a different dimension, and I feel more comfortable and safe in situation like this. Afterall, your perspective derives from your situation, and where I am, how I observe the world, what I see, and what I like, they are all part of the situation that leads to my perspective.

Gongmo: The most important part may be the fact that I’ve always been living a long distance away from my family, and I’m always feeling and perceiving the distance. I am alone in France, only seeing my family via the digital screens, and this gives me a very strong sense of distance. It’s been years since I first came to France for school, but you never stop being an alien, you just feel the different meanings of being alien at the different stages of the “blending in” process. I do have a different understanding about distance from the first several years, and the concept is also subject to change as my situation alters. It is hard to predict what effects it will have on my artistic practice.

I am relatively content with my situation as a painter. There was a time when I couldn’t figure out what I want to do, what I want to paint, could not find what I sincerely like, and sincerely want to paint. I started to have a vague idea on that not long ago, and now I can see the contour of the theme I’d like to paint for a long time. This feels nice. It’s off to a good start. And to paint the idea out also gives me comfort. That’s not a bad situation.

恭默：屏幕，狭义的电子屏幕也好，广义的任何一种能产生反射或者透视效果的表面也好，都广泛存在于我的生活中。我似乎很少把它们当成一种可以被忽视、被动接收光的工具。并且我自读本科以来离开家乡岳阳，再到18年之后来到法国南特，我和家人所有的交流都是通过屏幕这样一种界面进行的。我和家人的实体存在并未相交，是我们的虚像在这样的界面上得以汇合相遇。

或许是因为这个原因，再加之疫情期间其他的感官被进一步剥夺，通过屏幕的视觉感知更加增多，我开始对界面上的反射、这种反射如何让两个空间相遇有了格外的关注。到现在我的画作里几乎已经完全远离了“实像”，在场的几乎是完全的虚像。

恭默：对，有一个2020年到2021年的系列就是有关表面的。在这个系列中我画了很多物品微观的表面，比如面霜油润温和、像微观峡谷一样起伏的表面，带有水雾、零散水珠的塑料浴帘的表面，塑料的油桶，珍珠。有关表面的这个系列算是我对界面产生兴趣的一个前言吧。也是在疫情期间只能居家，每天目之所及都是一些非常常见的东西，逐渐就觉得很闷很无聊，想要把这些特别常见的东西放大化，把它们陌生化，因此也就有了这样一个系列。

反射现象的形成需要有一个实体和一个虚体，实体是屏幕本身，虚体是屏幕映出的像。因为在我现在的画中，实体是越来越缺席了，越来越多是仅关于屏幕上映的像，所以从表面上来的一切可能就是实体的遗存。我一直都对纹理和质感很感兴趣，界面首先也是一种表面，一种把自己向其他光敞开的表面，所以在我的门或者屏幕系列中，我都会画一些指纹或者印记，算是对实体的暗示吧。

恭默：其实在这两个质地之间我也还在慢慢磨合一个平衡点。我想保留一定程度颜料的纹理，因为它是绘画中一种特殊的真实性的表现。但同时我也渴望一种很虚的效果，想要刨除一切实体，实现一种完全的虚像。所以我也一直在这两种纹理风格中来回磨合，还没有找到一个我可以专心的、长久停留的平衡点。并且画布本身也是一种平面，每个平面都有自己的纹理，争相想要被表达。

恭默：我现在大部分时间也是在对着照片作画。我想照片里的图像和我的画一样，其实也是一种虚像。影像是影像，但被拍摄的物体本身又是另外一回事。对着照片作画就像在一重一重的虚像间去盘问物体的真实性。

我也是在一个缓慢的过程中才形成这样一种绘画流程的。最开始只是有了想要画物体表面成像这样一个模糊的想法，就很随意地收集了不少相关的照片，在生活中看到有类似这样场景的时候都会有意识地记录一下。最初拍下来的照片都很分散，各种各样的反射界面成像都有，我会把这些照片慢慢分类，在这样一个过程中逐渐找到我想要的反射界面的感觉，确定自己的绘画题材。我发现在这所有的照片中，我对门、窗户上产生的反射特别感兴趣。因为门不是一种很规则的反射面，它的成像是很虚、很模糊的，不会产生很实的像，我很喜欢这种距离感和不确定性。

我有时会觉得照片一定程度上代替了我眼睛的观察。我生活中看到的大部分东西都是平面的，都是图像，就算触手可及的三维的事物它在视网膜上成像时也是一幅二维的图像，我观察的图像远超过我每天会看到的实体。对着照片作画也像是一种接近哲学认知论的审问吧，我们对这个世界的认知实际上是从一种间接表征跳到另一个表征的过程吗，一直在表征中徘徊会让我们更接近还是远离真实呢？

恭默：是的，我会有意去使用镜头语言来表达说是相机代替了我的眼睛去观看的，让眼睛和画笔都学习另一种语言。我喜欢失焦、脱焦的感觉，喜欢在画里模仿大光圈带来的景深感。我觉得这对我个人和对于社会来说都是一个很有趣的现象。在我们这个时代，我们确实很多时候看到的大部分都是图像而非实体。而我本身眼睛也不怎么好，不喜欢好好戴眼镜，经常处于一种很看不清的状态。我有的时候甚至觉得相机比我的眼睛更清楚地看到这个世界，一种人工眼。

恭默：我是挺喜欢摄影的，之前在法国南特读书的时候二年级有一个学期专门在进行摄影实践。我的眼睛反应很慢，像行动迟缓的老人家一样，有时很多东西从眼前经过，视觉还没有反应过来相机快门就已经按下了。

恭默：是的，并且一定程度上我会觉得这和写生是一个相反的过程。在国内上学的时候训练主要是以写生为主，需要把真实的东西画在画布平面上，状态不好的时候会怀疑自己是否在进行一种对所描绘物的降维。但如果对着照片作画的话，在这一方面放心很多，我是在把由数字构成的虚像重现在画布上，画的帆布、颜料的实体，这一切都是有它真实可感的物质性的，这会让我觉得我画布上的活力更强了，某种程度上就像一种升维，一种更真实的体验。

不过说回来，这中间的差异现在看起来也许也很平常。写生或者对照照片，都会经历一个从充满束缚到相对自由的过程。一开始对着照片画的时候，我总尽力想画得和照片很像，会被很多细节迷惑，后来画照片画得多了，也慢慢知道其实是和写真一样的道理，有的地方该画，有的地方不该画，需要有自己的判断。

我说这个差异其实是相对平常还有一个原因就是虽然照片在我的创作过程中是相当重要的，但照片都或多或少地参与了现在很多画家的绘画过程。绘画这个相对古老的过程也是会随着我们认知世界的方式改变而产生变化的。现在比较常见的使用照片的方式是在构思草图的阶段，通过编辑照片或者剪贴来实验不同的超现实主义的构图方式。

恭默：是的，因为这一组画的内容是我女朋友，而surface的中心问题实际是关于距离的。门框倒影和虚像对我来说是一种对远距离的探索，这一组画属于与我最近的距离，对亲密距离的探索。因为我觉得比较亲密，比较有隐私感，所以也选择了小尺幅表达。

恭默：其实在最开始照片取材的时候，我拍摄反射画面中的路人，而他们并不知道在被观察，我想这个视角就是一种偷窥。而且我画作的背景是门，门上有一个猫眼，从画作本身也会传达一种可能的向外的偷窥。在写生的时候我和被描绘物需要处在同一个维度，但在用这种语境下的“偷窥”视角的时候就不会，创作者的处境或许会让自己感觉更安全、更自在。我觉得画作总归还是和自己的处境相关的，我所在的地理位置、我习惯的视角、我身处的环境、我看到的东西、我喜欢的东西，这都是处境的一部分。

恭默：或许是长久以来一直都在体会距离感的这样一种处境吧。我长期一个人在法国待着，长期以来与家中联系都是通过视频的形式，也才有了一直以来对距离的强烈感知。会慢慢感觉自己在融入法国，但这是一个很漫长的过程，身处异乡也是一个需要长久体会的现实。我现在对距离的理解和我刚刚开始这种处境时的理解是有所区别的，而将来随着处境的变化，下一阶段的创作是不是会有所不同，好像也很难说。

我目前对自己的创作状态还算满意吧。我之前其实一直不知道我想要干什么，想要画什么，一直找不到自己真正喜欢的东西和想表达的东西。现在感觉慢慢有一点喜欢的东西，想要画的东西了，这种感觉很好，是一个好的开始，把它们画出来了也让我感觉到很舒服，我觉得这就不错。