The merry-go-round suggests a state of life which is chasing and waiting. Even if the model horse is constantly moving in a revolving machine, it still spins round and round and never reach the former horse. It implies the ambivalence caused by our unsatisfied desires and a sense of powerlessness form being unconsciously controlled.
As Ma Wenyi's first solo exhibition, she shows her lastest artistic exploration. There are four works in this exhibition utilizing balloons as the carrier, it stems from Ma Wenyi's special preference for rubber materials, weaving a new pattern of objects within everyday life through her artistic practices such as juxtaposition, stretching, and scaling. When constructing this kind of dialogue between different objects, it is also a process of decoding and re-coding of her ego.
Whilst in the video work Merry-go-round and the installation work Bollards, as containers, these balloons are injected with gas, liquid, and sand. The extreme intense randomness caused by these unpredictable materials is the artist’s ultimate source of distinguishing from the mainstreamed, the intentionally designed or well-considered artistic creations. Wenyi’s works, letting things take their own course, reflects her attitude of ‘less is more’ towards life. In the series of works Merry-go-round, the balloons in different states seemingly encounter each other, but the edge of each video screen denies their interactions, indicating that they will never meet in the same spaces.
In her video work White, the white balloons are artificially manipulated to present a tight, bounced, and intertwined form, but it also blurs who is authentically controlling or being controlled. In this gambling of retraction and release, which might be injured or rupture, it eventually leads towards peace and nothingness.
From a certain perspective, Ma Wenyi is a radial experimenter who utilizes balloons to explore the subtle tensions between action and inaction, time and space. Keeping questing what we see as the familiar surrounding us, and gazing the abyss of the unknown, is what Wenyi’s works would like to inspire us.
Deng ZhiTing
