chói (vietnamese) is a word used to describe the state of shining brightly and glaringly. toghether with chang, chói chang refers to the state where things glare and glow, which is most often used to describe how the sun radiate its heat and light. however, in this context, I would love to define it as "to glow daringly" since it successfully convey the fearless element that none of the words in the english language can capture the essence and the rich onomatopoeia that goes with it.
although lots of my works have been having that "pop" quality, just remember that what you see here are not how they look in reality. in addition to drawing them on paper, another process that helps bring the idea and vibrance to life comes from messing up with the photo's transparency, highlight, exposure, and saturation settings. the whole thing is built in every iphone's photos app. I don't use any photo editing or filter app except for iphone's photos and ocassionally google's snapseed when I want to expand the photo to make wallpapers.
prologue
the reason why chói is so personally siginificant to me is probably because of the boldness and confidence that it harbors. for the most parts of my life, whenever I face something new, I always get overwhelmed by its vastness and abundance, to such an extent that I'm afraid to start. to be even more specific, I'm afraid of not getting things right. I've always tried to structure my life so that it follows some sort of rules from others. task management systems and personal development plan whatever, you know. while it's good to have a plan, I overdid for the most part, and more often than not, my energy was consumed to create a perfect plan for the future, to such an extent that I spare none to actually act it out. nowadays, I understand that a good plan for today is always better than a perfect plan for tomorrow. and that I need to free myself from my own constructs, my past beliefs of "always having to fall into some sort of structure" in order for things to work. let things happen, and don't try to act upon everything.
like that time when I want to learn watercolor painting. despite being a free medium, watercolor made me suffocate with its sense of perfection. every watercolor painting I've seen are mostly well done, and they seemingly allow no room for mistakes. I know that such feelings are subjective and I can always allow myself room for improvement but the drawing medium doesn't really suit my personality. it's not bold enough and doesn't have the accent that I need in my paintings. in addition to perfectionism, another source for my fear of experimentation comes from the cost of the art supplies. I was afraid that I might break them.
so I switched to acrylic paintings, starting off with cheap art supplies and colors. it's not that I don't have respet for myself or whatever, but doing so frees me from the fear of messing up. and even if I screw up, it won't cost me a fortune to buy everything. so far, it's been fine.
chói
an interesting thing about art is that you do it not to get anywhere or to get it completed. you do it for the sake of it alone, and there is beauty in doing that. this was my first acrylic drawing, which was the experimentation of various brush strokes to reveal all the softness and roughness that comes with it.
do I have any intention of what it will become? no. am I open to the possibility of it failing? yes. but every time thoughts like that arise, I keep telling myself that as long as I keep going, I will get there. the process is also similar to great artists such as Vincent van Gogh himself.
If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
yêu means love in vietnamese. yeux means eye in french. I love both words, hence the name yeu(x). interestingly now it opens up possibilities of people interpreting the title as some sort of mathematical functions. which interpretation is correct? all of them that I've already told you and also the ones you're having as well.
I'm not Christian, I'm also not a big fan of the Bible as a whole, however, I enjoy Christianity as a religion in fragments. I don't like church service, but I like its architecture. however, everytime I see a church in Africa or South America, I just have to remind myself that this was a colonizing tool and it's not as good as its ideals. nonetheless, there will always be something about anything for you to love. in addition to exodus 35:2, which places a strong emphasis on resting discipline, luke 10:38-42 is my favorite verses in the whole Bible. more on that later in another post so stay tuned.
princesses and princes make puppy love that comes and goes, but queens and kings build a strong bond that last. in retrospect, they still fall under gender roles and social constructs, making them less free than they are. at the end of the day, I guess I still enjoy that independence and sense of togetherness that's built from true feelings, not something that society wants you to do. I used to feel sorry for people just because they're not married. but now I realize it's much healthier to shine solo than to be with someone who doesn't know your worth.
it's not a bad idea to be a social outcast when everyone is pleasing everyone else but themselves.
besides acrylic painting, I also enjoy typography with permanent markers. they're more handy and takes less preparation and setting up than acrylic painting. the whole text above means "I don't want to work or study, I just want to play, I'm bored as fuck." there is no equivalent word to "đếch" in english, however, you can think of it as a harsher version of "đừng", or "don't".
sometimes I feel like what I'm doing is a waste of time. I know the value of time and I know better ways to spend it. to put it in perspective, I even think of the scenarios where someone is writing my biography on Wikipedia in the future. I'm sure they won't care about my IB scores anyways. the important things are the skills and people you meet, not always the end product. I hate the rat race itself and how people are stuck in this one and only criteria for them to base their self-worth on. sometimes I wonder who benefit from all this soul-sucking processes of capitalism. and why do humans keep doing the same thing that do them more harm than good.
no one is really free. and it's okay. freedom is, like many other things, an illusion. even when you think you're free, you're still the slave of your own ideologies.
7uppercuts has a song called wave alpha, and the whole thing has nothing to do with physics but it refers to the vietnamese wave alpha bike. however, due to my synesthesia, orange seems gamma to me and not alpha. although it's not empirically correct in the electromagnetic spectrum as gamma rays has shorter wavelengths than alpha rays, and orange and red are songs with the longest wavelengths, this is art so just ignore that ok?
most noodles are white or yellow. red noodles give me a nostalgic for a summer that I never had. a summer in my own perception.
this is inspired by Van Gogh's last words: "la tristesse durera toujours", which means sadness will last forever. the monotonous color of the painting draws the observer's eyes to its various textures. the lone person standing beneath the moonlit night signifies the simultaneous nature of one's significance and insignificance in this universe. we are lucky to be significant to be grateful of our lives, but we are also lucky that we are also insignificant because then we can forgive ourselves for our mistakes.
this always happen as I try to paint something "normal". I was trying to draw a casual starry night painting. I started with van Gogh and ended up with Albert Camus's narration.
My dear,
In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
Truly yours,
Albert Camus
the fact about life is that.
it goes on.
change is the only constant in life.
but you have the freedom to create your own constants.
for me, love, respect, and healthy relationships are great ones to live by.
this is another attempt of mine to draw a "normal" monarch butterfly. enjoy.
out of all the vowels in the english language, I enjoy O the most since it resembles a circle. many things in life comes back another time. I like its roundness and ever-lasting quality. I like it capitalized ralther than being lowercase. I like it in the middle of a word or at the end rather than at the beginning, as that makes the whole unique capitalization process more enjoyable.
suppose your name is kaho. I'd never call you Kaho. I'd call you kaho, or most likely, kahO.
Oliver is nice as a name but sadly it makes no difference between oliver and Oliver. names like sOphia, jOhn, charlOtte works. my name doesn't have an O but I was that obssessed with that letter so just call me sOang, not sang.
epilogue
I hope you enjoyed the collection. my art look like I was on crack then but I swear I wasn't haha. don't let my commentary stop you from coming up with your own interpretations, that's what arts are for. the commentary is only there to give you some contexts about my thought process and bits of facts about me.
I think no matter what you do, no matter if you write, dance, play the piano, draw, sketch, take photos, film, et cetera, an overarching concept remains storytelling. I think we do those things because we simply want to remember, and sometimes to be remembered. history doesn't remember everything, and I believe that the most interesting stories out there are untold. why the case? you may ask. untold stories are full of truth. have you ever seen anyone keeping a lie? no! they only try to keep the truth from getting known.
while I don't know what will become of me in the future, a thing I know for sure is I was, am, and will always have been a writer and a creater. in an everchanging function, those two values will always be my constants for time to come.
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