Wu Chi-Tsung began his art studies at a young age. Painting was his first introduction to art, from the inked shan-shuis of the East, to the sketched, watercolor landscapes of the West. Most of Wu’s professional work stems from his video experiments of 2002, and he has been engaged in questions of looking, gaze, observation, and the medium of video, ever since. The pursuit of this new expression has created some distance from the art traditions that were once familiar to him. As a result, in 2009 Wu conceived of the idea of a series of smaller works, in an attempt to connect traditional painting with the language of video—which he has vigorously developed—in order to re-interpret an elegance of the traditional works, that seems to have been lost in our contemporary context. For Wu, it also feels as if he is finally able to link together two torn selves.
When visiting a traveling exhibition from the Musée du Louvre in Taipei, in 1995, the teenage Wu was touched by the work Souvenir of Mortefontaine (1864) by the French painter Jean-Bapiste Camille Corot. The resonance Wu perceived was not exactly in the romantic portrayal, but a close resemblance to what Wu had assumed to be a landscape, and yet, not being fully able to articulate what it was, he could only sense an unspeakable connection to the work. Or perhaps [that] the presumed differences and boundaries were not so concrete after all…
The series Landscape in the Mist extends the examination of traditional painting and video language to different cultures and localities, in an attempt to describe the intersections, ambiguities, and fluidity of state.
自幼透過繪畫學習藝術，從東方的水墨山水，到西方的素描水彩風景，繪畫是我對於藝術的最初想像。個人主要的創作始於2002年的錄像實驗，從此思考影像與觀看的問題，成為我創作的主軸。曾幾何時，新的藝術表現的追尋，和曾經熟悉但逐漸遺忘的藝術傳統，似乎漸行漸遠，背道而馳。於是2009年有了小品系列的構想，試著把傳統繪畫和自己熟悉的影像語言連結在一起，重新詮釋那逝去的優雅氛圍。其實更像是重新連結起拉扯分裂的兩個自我。
1995年羅浮宮來到台北的展覽〈Louvre〉，有一張柯洛（Jean-BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT）的作品《靜泉之憶》（Souvenir of Mortefontaine），深深的震撼少年時期的我，倒不因為它的浪漫氣氛，而是它竟然和我以為的山水意象如此接近，卻又說不上來相似的到底是什麼，彷彿有種內在精神上的共通。或許概念中深信不疑的差異和界線，也不是那麼理所當然⋯⋯
這系列的錄像作品《煙林圖》， 將《小品》中有關於傳統繪畫與影像語言的探討，延伸到不同的文化和地域之間，試著描述其中交錯、曖昧與流變不定的狀態。
Landscape In The Mist 001
Single-channel video
煙林圖之一
單頻道錄影
09:15
2012
Landscape In The Mist 002
Single-channel video
煙林圖之二
單頻道錄影
11:35
2012
