Tai Li Wu

My thesis project is a self-portrait made up of memories, dreams, and emotions. The project itself is an installation consisting of a 5 minute animation housed within a sculpture to be mounted on the gallery wall, and accessible to the viewer through peep holes. I have drawn on three major influences during the creation of this project. First the work of sculptor Louise Bourgeois was important because of her ability to distill emotions into concrete but abstracted forms. Her influence was particularly relevant since much of her work focuses on exploring her own memories, which is a key theme in my project. Next I have been interested in using an idiosyncratic symbolism, which I found a reference for in the calligraphic drawings of Cy Twombly. Finally I was influenced by the inventive and multilayered imagery of Taiwanese poet Hsia-Yu whose poetry has been compared to painting with text. Her work is open ended and capable of multiple meanings which is something I hoped to achieve in my own work. This essay explores how I being effected by the visual and textural forms. I chose to create an abstract animation has a much more experimental lends itself to emotive content through its more open ended imagery.