The Secret of the Palimpsest——Loy Luo's New York Solo Exhibition ”Secrets“   Artist Statement: 

When early humans first carved and painted on the walls of caves, they did not use written symbols to represent letters or words. Their art therefore did not distinguish between writing and painting, and we cannot discern whether these early artists intended to state a thought, express emotion or perhaps achieve some other purpose. When we try to “read” these ancient images, we cannot be sure whether to approach them as art or texts.

事实上，人类最早在墙上和地上刻画时是无法区分书写与绘画的，即，人类无法区分自己那样做的动机究竟是要陈述什么还是抒发情绪。 所以，我们也可以将绘画文本视为更广泛意义上的书写文本。

Millennia later, and in the aftermath of modernism, artists may employ multifaceted and multimedia approaches to their work, yielding a kind of palimpsest, layering symbolic and visual imagery to convey specific experiences, impressions and expressions of the artists’ lives. 

现代主义之后，绘画创作的非预设性、偶发性、多媒体、多层次等特点，  使得绘画更是具有了类似于重写本的特征。 正如积极的生活就像用重复的书写来试图打破命运预定的或惯性的轨迹一样，现代绘画真正的丰富性和创造力也是在对熟练和习惯的对抗中获得的。 不同的、真正有创造力的艺术家都将自己生活的具体经历和表达融入到再现过程中。

My “Palimpsest” series recovers some of the literal meaning of “writing”: here I focus on exploring the visual integration and transformation of written texts. On the one hand, the creative inspiration comes from the recognition of the visual nature of traditional Chinese calligraphy, and on the other hand, it draws on the visual transformation of textual elements in contemporary art. I introduce both textual visualizations with different backgrounds and motivations. Traditional calligraphy, as the initial visual application of words, is limited and dependent on the readability of words. The text references in modern collage make the readability and visuality of the text more diverse and vivid. It particularly highlights the ambiguity, polysemy, imagery, and symbolism of text, and combines various visual means to achieve creative intentions.

我的“重写本”系列恢复了一些“书写”的字面意义：我在这里重点探索书面文本的视觉整合和转化。 创作灵感一方面来自对中国传统书法视觉性的认知，另一方面是借鉴当代艺术中文字元素的视觉化转化。 我试图同时引入这两种具有不同背景和动机的文本视觉化。 传统书法艺术作为文字最初的视觉应用，是有限的、是依附于文字的阅读性的。而 现代拼贴艺术中的文本引用使文本的可读性和视觉性结合得更加多样和生动。 它尤其突出了文字文本的意义歧义性、多义性、形象性、符号指示性，并结合各种视觉手段来实现创作意图。

 "Palimpsest" works employ the more familiar texts adopted from the "Book of Songs[JP1] " and the "Buddhist Sutra," as well as less familiar works, such as centuries-old scores of music played on the guqin, an ancient Chinese string instrument. However, when I use these texts, I do not expect them to be read normally, but rather to provide a kind of atmosphere that is visible but of uncertain meaning. To this end, I use installation, reliefs, inversions, coverings and other means to obscure normal reading, rendering them readable in some respects and unreadable in others. Perhaps only by immersing yourself in such ambiguity can you reach a little bit of the impossible truth.

《重写本》系列使用了中国人熟悉的《诗经》文本和《佛经》文本，以及普通人不熟悉的古琴乐谱文本。 然而，当我使用这些文本时，我并不期望它们能够被正常阅读，而是让它们提供某种视觉可见可感的但又似乎并不言明的背景氛围。 即它是视觉的，却是意义并不确定的视觉。为此， 我用装置、浮雕、倒置、遮盖等手段来遮挡正常的阅读，使它们象哑谜一般既可读又不可读。 正如佛陀所说：不可说。 或许，只有置身于难以言说的境地，才能触及一点不可能得到的真相。

艺术家介绍