Jiang-Ze Jhong: The Open Universes | 鍾江澤個展：開放的宇宙
NUNU FINE ART
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Nunu Fine Art Taipei is pleased to present Jiang-Ze Jhong: The Open Universes, the Taipei-based painter’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, which will showcase the accumulation of the artist’s explorations and pursuits from the past twenty years. These works were also influenced by his recent discovery and borrowing of the concept of "The Need for Cognitive Closure" which not only resonated with him but also helped him to articulate his artistic aspirations.
Jiang-Ze Jhong's artistic practice involves reinterpreting existing images, such as famous paintings, photographs, and movie scenes. His process is to blur and break the clear and defined outlines of his source images, often mixing unrelated visual elements to turn the pictures into vibrant and imaginative scenes. His large-scale oil paintings feature powerful and unpredictable brushstrokes, creating an unnerving sense from the flow of images, leaving viewers feeling both unsettling and intrigued.
"The Need for Cognitive Closure"
The psychological state of urgently desiring definite answers when facing ambiguous situations.
Upon first encountering this concept, Jhong was immediately inspired to apply it to painting, exploring the concept of "non-closure" and ambiguity on his canvases abstaining from perfection or absolute answers. He achieves this by constantly modifying his paintings, covering, and overlapping layers to blur the meaning of the original imagery, making it difficult to achieve “cognitive closure”.
The artist states, "I greatly appreciate the sense of confusion in a painting, as I think it is a remarkable quality, and prompts continuous overlaying in search of ‘points of confusion’ within the artwork."
〈動物遊戲〉Animal-themed game, 2024
In the painting, Animal-themed Game, one can observe how the original image is partially altered and partially preserved through the path of creation. The decisive lines reveal the artist's sense of improvisation in painting, evoking imagery that alternates between human and animal-like forms, embodying multiple meanings and bringing about a sense of uncertainty – qualities that Jhong actively pursues in his work.
To stimulate inspiration, Jhong often rotates his paintings and starts anew, generating new images from the existing foundation. The existing images then influence the subsequent development, no longer being solely under his control. Looking at paintings like Deer and Cattle Below the Mountain or Bullfight, one can perceive the intriguing aspect of the composition appearing both vertical and horizontal.
〈山下的鹿與牛〉Deer and Cattle Below the Mountain, 2024
「我很喜歡繪畫造成的困惑感，那是很棒的東西，我為了找尋『困惑點』會不停覆蓋作品。」
鍾江澤，出生於1981年，生活及工作於臺灣臺北。
鍾江澤的藝術實踐包含重新詮釋現有的影像，如名畫、照片和電影場景，打破既有影像的清晰輪廓，混合不相干的視覺元素，讓畫面充滿活力、極富想像。他大型油畫作品上強大且不可預測的手感筆觸，視覺上不斷壓迫的圖像所產生的不安情緒，使人感到撲朔迷離又同時令人驚嘆。
自學生時期，鍾江澤即不斷透過大量閱讀不同領域的學說，幫助自身思考繪畫的本質。他特別欣賞法蘭西斯·培根（Francis Bacon）的作品，因為其中有一種無法描述的特質深深吸引著他，他也一直將這樣的「特質」在他的創作中體現。近幾年，他偶然接觸到社會心理學家阿里·克魯格蘭斯基（Arie Kruglanski）提出的「認知閉合需求（The Need for Cognitive Closure）」概念，立即將其與培根的作品聯繫起來，並發現可以借用這個概念名稱，去延伸描述他過去難以名狀的追求。
「認知閉合需求」描述每個人在面對模糊的狀況時，急切渴望明確答案的心理狀態，無論答案的好壞對錯，任何答案都比不確定的感受更容易被接受。
鍾江澤在初次接觸到這個概念時，立刻產生了將其運用於繪畫的靈感，探討以「不閉合」作為繪畫完成的結果，也就是在他的畫布上產生一種模擬兩可的畫面，沒有絕對的答案。為了追求這樣的結果，藝術家透過修改畫作上原來的路徑，塗改覆蓋並且致力於跳脫原本圖像指涉的意義，模糊或讓各個圖像或塗層重疊交錯，讓認知不能輕易閉合。
作品〈動物遊戲〉中可見創作過程中的原有路徑部分被塗改而部分保留，果斷的線條顯現出藝術家作畫的即興感，時而像人時而像動物的認知跳耀、多重意義及不確定感就是鍾江澤所追求的，藉由抵抗認知，維持認知不閉合，進而產生可能性的開放狀態。
〈佔領主席台〉Occupation of the Legislature's Platform, 2024
展作〈佔領主席台〉描繪立法院一群人扭打糾纏的畫面，顏料的堆疊覆蓋、顛覆圖像認知，似人非禽的模糊線條與即興感便展演了身份與處境的不確定性。
藝術家自述：「立法院打架的畫面總是複雜與扭曲的人體糾纏，讓我看到開放空間以及保持認知閉合需求的可能。台灣獨特的歷史與政治背景下形成的對立與張力應該是很大的原因。對我來講是個常見又驚奇的現象，這無關政治立場的。」
