I'd love to begin somewhere a little unexpected. Imagine I've just walked into your studio for the first time; I don't want your CV, I want your world. Which three or four objects would you point to, to tell me who you are? And what would each of them quietly say about you?
Although I currently only have a small painting space and don't yet have an independent studio of my own, I can clearly picture what it will look like in the future: on the left, a large floor-to-ceiling window bathed in sunlight; straight ahead, a massive canvas; and next to it, my workbench. When you step inside, the first things you will notice are the gentle light and the fresh, airy breeze. I would point to these three objects and tell you: look, this is my favorite floor-to-ceiling window, it gives my soul space to breathe. Here is my favorite Size 100 canvas, which carries my deep connection to the inner divine. And over there is my workbench, holding my computer and coffee, accompanying me as I translate inspiration and resonate with more beautiful souls around the world.
You've just let me see yourself through those things. Now I'd love to trace the path backwards: was there a moment you started calling yourself an artist, or is it something that was always simply there? Tell me the story of how it began.
Strictly speaking, I still haven't formally referred to myself as an "artist." I am much more accustomed to calling myself a "creator," because the title of "artist" often seems to require external definition to exist. However, if I trace back to the beginning, the instinct to paint was always there. Yet, during the learning phase before entering society, I tried hard to step into the art world, only to encounter frustration at every turn, ultimately leaving my aspirations unfulfilled. Throughout more than fifteen years of struggling in design work, producing things solely to cater to the market caused my soul to gradually wither. Even more difficult were these past few years. Beyond general life instability, I faced intense shocks in my intimate relationship, compounded by a decade of emotional tearing with my family of origin. During that period, I fell into profound trauma and pain. Frequent panic attacks, anxiety, chest tightness, and shortness of breath repeatedly drove me into a corner, an almost pathological agony of body and mind where I nearly lost all sense of control over my life. Until one day, standing in the darkest and most desperate moment, a strong voice suddenly rose from within: I no longer want to paint to please others. At that time, I stopped thinking about "what to paint" and painted purely to save myself. I freely wrote those unutterable emotions onto the canvas, letting my consciousness flow and spread in the moment. Then, with my palms, I rubbed, smeared, and completely dismantled and destroyed them, slowly rebuilding a new order and poetic atmosphere out of the ruins. The moment I erased the pain with my own hands and reshaped a new image amidst the debris of color, I suddenly realized something: I no longer cared whether I was an artist in the eyes of others. So, it was not that I chose art; rather, after my life underwent an ultimate collapse, art chose to be reborn within me.
There's something striking in how you put that: art didn't come as a choice, but as what emerged after everything else gave way. I keep thinking about the ground that was still there for you to fall onto and rebuild on. ArtLab is built on the idea that art crosses borders, and I'm always curious how a place lives inside the work. You're based in Taiwan; how has where you come from, its rhythms, its language, its way of looking, shaped the person and the artist you are today?
I grew up in Pingtung, surrounded by an extraordinarily inclusive natural environment, as well as the deep love and sense of security given by my family. This profound nourishment became the sturdiest bedrock at the bottom of my life, giving me enough confidence and grounding to explore and express. The "locality" in my work is not represented by concrete cultural symbols, but rather by an intense longing for freedom and space, as well as a vast capacity to embrace all things. This land gave me the strength to take root and the drive to break through, teaching me how to build a vast openness within myself, through art, inside the narrowest cracks of existence.
That bedrock you describe, the security that let you explore rather than defend yourself, makes me think about what you choose to expose once you're at the canvas. Before someone sees a finished painting of yours, they usually meet you in the middle of making one; the process is what you choose to share. That's unusual: the making is often the most private part of an artist's life. What made you decide to open it up? What does it mean to you that people come to know you through the doing, rather than the done?
The reason I choose to reveal my private creative process is that, to me, the act of recording the creation is itself an integral part of my art. Many people are used to knowing a creator through their finished pieces, but I prefer that people see the "action" behind them. When I begin to paint, it starts out intensely subjective. I write words, let unconscious flows spill out, or paint indefinable symbols and imagery. When viewers watch me lay these intangible states onto the canvas, only to dissolve and reconfigure them with my own hands, that authentic translation of energy carries far more vitality than a static visual outcome. Making this process public creates a dynamic connection across time and space, allowing viewers on the other side of the screen to not only see the final image, but also witness how chaos dissolves, reorganizes in silence, and returns to clarity. Yet this does not mean the canvas left behind is merely secondary residue. On the contrary, it is a "crystallization" refined after a practice of living. It not only records the chaos, destruction, and reconstruction that occurred, but ultimately presents an aesthetically striking image capable of moving the heart.
The first thing that strikes anyone looking at your work is this endless flow of characters. For those of us who can't read them, the meaning stays hidden, and yet the emotion comes through completely, this discharge of tension almost before understanding. So I have to ask: what are you actually writing? Are they words, thoughts, a stream of consciousness you're letting out? And does the meaning of what you write matter to you, or is it the act of writing itself that carries everything?
What lands on the canvas is my most authentic "stream of consciousness" at that moment. They are not carefully crafted sentences, but a blend of immediate thoughts, intuitive flashes of symbols, and unutterable emotional shifts. Sometimes heavy, sometimes light, some are even shapes I cannot define myself, arising without origin. To me, the specific literal meaning of these words and symbols does not matter. Once the painting is complete, I never re-read them, nor do I remember what was written. What truly carries everything is the physical act of writing and painting itself. This is not merely a process of translating an inner state; it is a quiet alignment. I open myself up, letting those tangible and intangible flows pass through my body to attach to the canvas. Whether releasing heavy pressure or receiving lightness, the exchange is fulfilled within the action.
What fascinates me is what happens next. Sometimes you go back over the writing with another colour, another layer of words; in a piece like Light in the Cracks, the text seems to be the very foundation, later buried under the paint. So the writing is there, but we're not meant to read it. Are those words meant to disappear? And once they're covered, are they lost or are they still present, holding up everything we see on the surface?
When I cover them with new colors, or even with my palms, these words and symbols do not die or disappear. They become the solid foundation of the entire painting. It is just like everything we experience in life: whether pain or joy, though cleansed and faded over time until no longer visible on the surface, they still silently exist at the depth of our soul, supporting the person we are today. Although viewers cannot read explicit words on the surface of the canvas, they can feel the depth built up by layers of experience.
Your paintings are built layer upon layer: in Echoes of a Shattered Heart the characters pile up and overlap until an intense violet almost swallows the whole surface. I keep seeing in this the layers of thought that never stop moving in our minds. And I wonder whether painting, for you, isn't an act of resisting that inner noise so much as accepting it, letting it settle rather than fighting it. Does that ring true to how it feels while you work?
That is a beautiful way to describe it. For me, painting is never about resisting or attempting to eliminate inner noise; it is about absolute acceptance, allowing those frequencies to find a place to settle on the canvas. Thoughts in the mind are constantly flowing and overlapping. When I layer those words and colors over one another, even allowing intense shades to swallow the entire surface, I am not burying them. I am building a sanctuary for these chaotic frequencies. I simply say to myself: "It's okay, I know you are all here." With the accumulation of color and time, the once noisy, assertive inner noise slowly transforms and settles within this non-resistant acceptance, ultimately condensing into absolute stillness.
There's a moment in your process where you put the brush down and work the colour with your bare hands; the writing disappears completely under them. It looks like the grip of anxiety slowly loosening, the intensity of the strokes fading until something calms. You've said that intensity is the precursor to peace. I'd love you to unfold that for me: why does the tension have to come first? What is it that happens, in you and on the canvas, in that shift from the hand pressing hard to the hand letting go?
Because without passing through extreme tension and collapse, one cannot truly experience complete release. Tension and peace are two sides of the same coin. When I cover, smear, and destroy those words directly with my palms, it is a process of shattering the old order. In the moment my hand touches the canvas, there might be a flicker of nervousness toward the unknown, but as the form deconstructs, what follows is an immense sense of relief and freedom, the thorough release of suppressed and bound energy once the framework is broken. That transition, from tension to breakthrough, to ultimate letting go, is the exact moment energy is cleansed and transformed. It is not only an inner liberation for my body and mind, but also leaves a genuine path on the canvas of moving from chaos into peace.
You've described your process as moving through three moments: release, destruction, and reconstruction. It's a rhythm that feels larger than painting itself; there's something in it of surrender, of things having to fall apart before they can be remade, that many spiritual traditions have spent centuries trying to name. When you pass through those three stages, does it feel like a purely creative act to you, or like something closer to a ritual? And is there a tradition, Buddhism, or another path, that has shaped the way you understand this cycle of undoing and remaking?
To me, this has indeed transcended painting itself. These three stages do not originate from any religion or tradition; they are the rhythms of the universe I personally experienced while exploring awareness and emptiness. Things must undergo complete dismantling before a new order can be reborn, this is not a rigid theory, but an organic inevitability of how life energy operates. When all defenses and frameworks are completely cleared, ultimate peace and order naturally manifest within that "emptiness," inherently whole and complete. This is a profound resonance I conduct with the cycle of creation and dissolution, using my life and the canvas as the medium.
Now that we've walked through the making, I'd love to step back and look at the whole. Beyond any single canvas, what does this body of work mean to you, what part of yourself, or what truth, does it hold that you couldn't reach in any other way? When you think about your life, where does your art really sit: is it something you do, or something you live by?
Art is not the only path through which I perceive existence or stay aware of the present, but it is an extraordinarily captivating and precise medium. As for the place art holds in my life, it is neither a routine activity nor a grand rule to live by. I won't exaggerate by saying "I cannot survive without art," but if I chose not to create, an unfillable emptiness would remain at the bottom of my heart. It is more like an endless source of strength and longing that pushes me to express at specific moments. I simply yield to that push, giving form to the invisible, allowing what cannot be spoken to gain its corresponding weight and resonance on the canvas.
You make your work for people who are trying to slow down and find some stillness. When a stranger stands in front of one of your paintings, someone who will never read the words buried under the paint: what do you hope happens inside them? Not what you want them to think, but what you want them to feel, and carry away with them. How do you dream your art lives on, inside someone else?
When a stranger stands before my work, even if they can never read the words and symbols buried beneath the colors, I hope the painting ignites a powerful tremor within them. I do not want them to analyze or think with their mind about what the painting is trying to say. I seek an impact beyond language, whether it is complete acceptance, the shiver of being understood, or long-suppressed emotions being instantly pried open. I dream that my art lives on like the strike of a bell deep within the soul. As they watch the deconstruction and reshaping of color, I hope they feel a hardened part of themselves torn open and cleansed in an instant, followed by extreme clarity and peace. As long as a painting can create one powerful vibration within a soul, allowing them to carry away a piece of truth thoroughly washed clean, the artwork has fulfilled a life of its own.
We've reached the end of our conversation, and I'd like to close gently. If your paintings could leave just one thing behind in the world, a feeling, a small shift, a kind of peace; what would you want it to be? And is there something you'd like to say, almost like a quiet blessing, to whoever finds themselves standing in front of your work one day?
If my paintings could leave just one final thing behind in this world, I hope it would be a steady, deep force. Not a light soothing, but a deep, solid support forever resting behind your back. Like the energy brought by fire, having passed through intense burning and tempering, it ultimately condenses into a warm, unwavering presence. No matter how chaotic or heavy a state you arrive in, this space can fully embrace you, hold you up, and make you feel that you have never been alone. Finally, to the soul standing in front of my work one day, I would like to say: "I see you. Here, you can lay down all your defenses and embrace all your emotions. You can see yourself, and you can reconnect with this world. You don't need to understand me, but I hope that through this painting, you can see yourself once again, because returning to awareness is the sole and most authentic source of power in your life."