Inhabiting Liubai: An investigation through art practice

Abstract

Inhabiting Liubai：an investigation through art practice is a practice-based doctoral thesis. It concentrates on a sustained mixed media practice, exploring the ‘space’ of Liubai, which derives from traditional Chinese landscape painting methods. As a form of space, Liubai refers to a certain infinite, expanded, or open approach, both visually and spiritually. As explored in my work Liubai is an attempt to break away from the boundary of the self. My practice research focuses, then, on an expansion of Liubai, which is developed through a mixed-media approach, but developed through inhabitable sites, drawing together a relationship between body and space and seeking for a sense of “opening” and encountering. The process of making artworks range in form from painting (inside to outside of the studio) to shooting videos (allowing for a recording of resonances between space, art making, and the body). The concept of Liubai is not only internalized into my artworks as a method, but more importantly, the aim is to uncover the profound cultural influence that lies behind Liubai. Thus, the space of Liubai is not merely revealed in the spatial construction of Chinese landscape painting but is operationalized as a means to open up the concept of Liubai itself as a bridge, enabling a grafting between Chinese and Western art theory and practice. My artworks (and their process of making) describe and inscribe a cross-cultural theoretical framework of Liubai space through review and response, such as seeking dialogue and debate between Daoist philosophy and Western theory. The implied ambiguity and uncertainty of Liubai serve for its expansion, which also inspires me to choose between different medium and production techniques. The thesis introduction establishes the nature and status of my art making as intertwined with the overall research undertaking. The art experiments and theoretical explorations of Liubai space are then set out in two parts. Part 1, “Locating Liubai Terrains, Traditions and Landscapes”, situates the space of Liubai within both theoretical and practical debates relating to history, philosophy, and art practice, and draws upon and analyses some intercultural literature to illustrate Liubai in Chinese landscape painting. In responding to the space of Liubai, contemporary art and my own works are given as examples. The concept of Liubai space is gradually transformed into method of expanding space, which is the focus of the Part 2, “Liubai as an Expanded Method”. Here, the space of Liubai is explored in direct relation to my art practice, revealing aspects of decision making and adjustments to the making of work and by extension an interaction with the wider environment. The thesis concludes with “(Over) flowing: A Report on Art Practice”. Due to the lived nature of Liubai (i.e., as a method of expanded space) this report concludes by setting out key facets of overflowing and inhabiting. From the perspective of art practice, the concept of Liubai space has been extended and sublimated in day-to-day life reflections and visual and philosophical ‘ways of seeing’. In other words, the research process is not mechanical and fixed but should be understand as fluid and malleable as clouds, fog, and water. In this sense, as a form of contemporary art practice, Liubai space is defined here as an overflowing within life.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Wenke Sun: orcid.org/0009-0007-0399-1582

ORCID for Sunil Manghani: orcid.org/0000-0001-6406-7456

ORCID for Ian Dawson: orcid.org/0000-0002-3695-8582

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