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专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义

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专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客

有一位定居上海的艺术家，他用极简的、充满戏谑色彩的线条，加以绚丽的颜料喷涂，描绘出一个个生动又可爱的形象：

这是漫画中的怪物吗？

这是毛茸茸的小鸡吗？

这是被放大的细菌微生物吗？

而每当观众问起他的创作时，他的回答总是带着一丝神秘的冷静，任何具体的描述都无法精确表达出未定的答案，他希望这个答案完全对观众开放，即便他们的第一直觉充满了困惑与不解。他相信，原初想象力的诞生恰恰始于困惑。

他也常常穿梭于各大展览，对于他来说，观看是一种最直观体验艺术的方式。回忆起童年，他甚至能够记忆曾经在卢浮宫中游荡的路线，认出每一件艺术品的名称及出处。这个疯狂的艺术怪才，经历着这样一种人生——成长于艺术世家、胸怀对艺术与音乐的疯狂热爱。

他还在世界各地留下过创作的足迹，通过绘画、摄影、视频和音乐等等，来寻求内心的自由和生活的意义。长久以来，于他身上闪烁的存在主义人文精神，让他蜕变为一个悲观的乐观者——生活无非是一场荒诞不经的游戏，我们身处其中的存在之意义，如他所说，就是去“寻找无意义中的意义”。

他是Vasken Mardikian，一个身在上海的比利时艺术家。

专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客

Vasken Mardikian

比利时艺术家，耶鲁大学纯艺硕士

生于比利时布鲁塞尔，目前在中国上海工作生活。2008年，他获得富布赖特奖学金，并于耶鲁大学艺术学院获得硕士学位。就读于耶鲁大学期间，他与彼得·哈雷（Peter Halley）、梅尔·博什纳（Mel Bochner）和罗伯特·斯托尔（Robert Storr）一起学习。自那时起，他被南麂艺术工作室驻地（首尔）、斯沃琪和平酒店艺术家驻地（上海）和文化博物馆特兰斯（瑞典）选中，他的作品被展于布鲁塞尔、巴黎、纽约、迈阿密、京都、首尔和上海的个展和群展等。

Vasken Mardikian is an Belgian artist currently working and living in Shanghai, China. He obtained his MFA from Yale University School of Art with a Fulbright grant in 2008, where he studied with Peter Halley, Mel Bochner and Robert Storr. Since, he has been selected by the Nanji Art studio residency (Seoul), the Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency (Shanghai), and the Kulturresidens Tranas (Sweden), and his work has been included in solo and group exhibitions in Brussels, Paris, New York, Miami, Kyoto, Seoul, and Shanghai.

在上海封城的这些日子里，

本期艺术家专访，

我们邀请到Vasken Mardikian，

一起聊聊关于艺术，

关于生活的那些事。

I Would Like To Make A Painting

「 EYECANDIES ×

Vasken Mardikian 」

视觉艺术，

是我想要与世界互动的方式。

Q：可以自我介绍一下吗？

·A：首先呢，音乐是我青少年时期的重要组成部分。我是先学钢琴长大的，即便我学得有点晚，开始学的时候已经13岁了。不过，我其实在一个更视觉化的艺术环境中长大，母亲是画家，父亲是建筑师。在我小时候，我们经常去巴黎看展，尤其是去卢浮宫，这对我产生了巨大的影响。从音乐学院毕业后，我自然而然地回到了视觉艺术领域，做绘画、摄影等等。

在我27岁左右的时候，我觉得有必要继续接受视觉艺术之类的教育。那时比利时并没有真正的硕士课程，所以我研究了一下，决定去美国读纯艺术。2008年毕业后，我在纽约待了两年。之后，我决定和一个韩国朋友一起到韩国。我在首尔待了大约两年，不仅在大学教书，还参与了首尔艺术博物馆举办的马南麂驻留项目。2014年，我在上海的斯沃琪艺术和平酒店驻留了6个月，从那时起，我就一直在中国工作和生活。

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Q1: Maybe you can introduce yourself to us?

A1: Let me start by saying music was a big part of my adolescent and young adult life. At first, I grew up studying the piano, starting a little bit late, around 13 years old. After that, growing up in a more visual art environment than a musical one, having a mother painting and a father who is an architect. We often went to Paris to visit exhibitions and especially spent time at the Louvre Museum, which significantly impacted me around that time. After graduating from music school, I automatically went back to visual art, doing paintings, photography, etc. At some point, around 27-28 years old, I felt the need to get further education in visual art or something like that. Belgium didn't really have a master's program, so I researched and decided to go to the United States, where I did my MFA (Master in Fine Art) at Yale. After graduation (2008), I spent two years in New York City. After that, I decided to join a friend in Korea, where I spent around two years in Seoul, where I taught at a University. I also did the SeMA Nanji residency run by the Seoul Museum of Art. In 2014 I spent 6 months at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency in Shanghai, and since then, I have been working and living in China.

专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客

Acrylic on canvas, 75x85cm, 2018

Q：你年轻时从音乐学院毕业，但你在27岁时又去耶鲁大学攻读纯艺硕士学位。为什么要将自己的职业从音乐家转为视觉艺术家？

·A：虽然我喜欢弹钢琴，可古典音乐的训练就像一项运动，需要日复一日地训练，而视觉艺术更像是一种理智的生活方式。通过（视觉艺术）这种方式，能够一步一步地探索出表达自己的可能性。在我学习音乐的时候，视觉艺术也是我生活的一部分，所以它是很自然的发生。在成长过程中，我不仅喜欢而且经常去博物馆和美术馆。如果你给我一张地图，我会告诉你卢浮宫的各幅画在哪里，可以说，我对卢浮宫简直了如指掌。我既是个狂热分子，又像个呆子，哈哈。所以并不是我突然改变了，它一直都在。我确实在25岁左右发生了转变，从马斯特里赫特音乐学院毕业后，我自己画了几年画，直到我在布鲁塞尔皇家学院获得了全国绘画比赛的奖项。在那之后，我知道视觉艺术才是我想要与世界互动的方式。

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Q2: You went to music school when you were young, but when you were in your late twenties, you went to Yale to study a master's degree in Fine Arts. So that is the switch, why would you change your career from a musician to a visual artist?

A2: Even if I love playing the piano, training to become a classical musician is like a sport; you need to train daily, while visual art is more like an intellectual approach to life. I personally find more possibilities to express myself using visual language. Even when I was studying music, visual art was part of my life. Growing up, I regularly visited Museums and art galleries, something that I enjoyed a lot. At some point, you would have given me a map of the Louvre Museum and asked me where a specific painting was, I would probably have been able to show you; I was a fanatic, I was like a nerd, and I was entirely insanely obsessed about it. So it is not that I suddenly switched; it was always there. I did make a shift around 25; after graduating from Maastricht Academy of Music, I painted for a few years for myself until I got a prize from a national painting competition at the Royal Academy in Brussels. After that, I knew that visual art was how I wanted to interact with the world.

专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客

Acrylic on canvas, 2018

Q：你能说说你的展览，你如何看待这些年来作品的变化，以及你现在的工作重点是什么？

·A：去耶鲁之前，我是在做抽象画，包括概念画和摄影画。在我硕士作品创作期间和之后，我使用不同的媒介来探索不同的想法，但我一直在抽象画领域发展，直到2012-13年左右。然后我决定放弃抽象画法，尝试一些新的东西。在斯沃琪艺术和平酒店居住期间，我开始创作一些漫画，觉得自己更愿意充分探索这些可能性了。经过几年的研究和探索，大约在2016-17年，一些看起来像怪物、虫子或病毒的东西开始出现。人们通常会以为我做这类绘画是因为新冠，但这些元素其实早在2017年就已经存在了。所以在疫情前，我的作品已经出现了“病毒”或“细菌”的概念。

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Q3: Could you tell us more about your exhibition, your exhibition history, how you see the work change over the years and what is the main focus of your work right now?

A3: Before going to Yale, I was doing abstract paintings, which were conceptual and photographic. During and after my Master I explored different ideas using a variety of mediums but kept developing my abstract paintings until around 2012- 2013. Then I decided that would be the time when I moved away from those abstract paintings and did something new. Even if I started doing some cartoony paintings in 2007-2008, around 2013-2014, during my residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, I felt much more ready to fully explore those possibilities. After a few years of research and exploration, around 2016-17, some characters started to emerge, looking like monsters, bugs, or viruses. People think I started doing those types of painting because of the pandemic, but those elements already existed in 2017. So those ideas come from before COVID; when COVID arrived, my work was already inside of this idea of virus or bacteria. Still, it's important to mention that those were created before the pandemic.

专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客

Acrylic on canvas, 135x150cm, 2019

观众可以用他们想要的方式，

来解释艺术。

Q：你是如何描述你的主题的呢？我看到一些毛茸茸的图像，有时你会把它们描述为病毒，具体的主题又是什么呢？

·A：我对定义我在做什么并不感兴趣。它们可以是我生活的反映，也可以是幽默地对我们视觉存在的探讨。作为一名艺术家，我融汇了社会的复杂感觉，虽然我无权也没有多少可能会改变它，但是仍然需要探讨它。所以，如果你是一个作家，你会写文章、书或故事，不管它是什么，然后将它们带到无论人们是否产生联系的这个世界中来。作为一名视觉艺术家，我创造了一些视觉上的东西，观众可以用自己的理解、知识和背景以他们想要的方式来解释。我的大部分作品都与幽默有关，因为幽默为解释提供了空间。它通常始于一次意外，不一定是已经明确澄清的事情。你需要让这些东西不知从何而来，当它们出现时，你就会开始思考它们，然后试着弄清楚它们可能是什么。尽管如此，大多数时候，它们都是与我如何体验生活相关的东西的组合。

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Q4: How do you describe your subject matter? I see there are fluffy images which you sometimes described them as viruses, what is exactly the subject matter? Could you tell us more about that?

A4: I’m not interested in fully defining those things or what I am doing visually. Those are done in reaction to my life; and are visual comments on our existence with a sense of humor. As an artist, I absorbed the mixed feeling of our society with no power and not many possibilities to change it but still have the need to comment on it. So if you are a writer, you write essays, books, or a story, whatever it is, and put it in the world where people connect to it or not. As a visual artist, you create something visual that viewers can interpret the way they want with their own understanding, knowledge, and background. Much of my work is related to humor because humor provides space for interpretation. It often starts as an accident, not necessarily something you have clearly clarified. You need to let those things come from nowhere, and when they appear, you begin to think about them and then maybe try to figure out what they could be. Still, most of the time, they are a combination of things related to how I experience life.

专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客

Acrylic on canvas, 135x150cm, 2019

Q：你采用了非常明亮的颜色，创造了这个非常蓬松的小怪物，你也着重强调这只眼睛，它有怎样的灵感来源和寓意呢？

·A：在2017年之前，当我画了我的第一幅怪物画时，我正努力重新诠释一个意大利卡通人物。我把一只小鸟放回它的架子上，只突出它的眼睛，营造出一种它害怕离开的感觉。调色盘颜色较深，使用棕色和灰色，几乎是巴洛克式的感觉。2017年，我试了一张小画布，随机运用了一些生动的表现主义抽象的笔触。几天后，我为它画上了眼睛。我尝试实验，并慢慢地向更明亮的颜色递进。

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Q5: You are using very bright colors, to create those very fluffy little monsters, and you also put lots of emphasis on the eyes of your own creation, could you tell us more about that?

A5: Before 2017, when I did my first monster painting, I was working on the reinterpretation of an Italian cartoon character. It was a little bird that I put back inside his shelf and let only his eyes appears, giving a sense that he was afraid to get out of it. The color pallet was darker, using brown and grey colors, almost a baroque feeling. In 2017 I played with a small canvas, randomly applying some colors living expressionistic abstract brushstrokes. A few days later, I put an eye on it. I started to experiment with it and slowly moved toward brighter colors.

Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 30x40cm, 2021

Q：当你盯着它看的时候，有什么感觉？

·A：一开始，它只是一些细细的笔触在黑色背景上形成的椭圆形，并不令人满意，但当我画上一只眼睛时，突然它就被赋予了抽象意义，就像在混沌中睁开了眼，观众很快就明白了。这确实让我的脸上露出了笑容。

Q6: How did that make you feel when putting an eye on it?

A6: At first, It was simply some thin brushstrokes forming an oval shape on a dark background, something not very satisfying, but when I put an eye on it, suddenly it gave life to that abstract boule which I think could help the viewer to connect to it. It definitively put a smile on my face.

Acrylic on canvas, 135x150cm, 2020

Q：颜色呢？如何描述你在作品中使用的颜色？

·A：颜色的使用对我来说非常直观，即使它可以有自己的词汇。对我来说，我对用颜色来表达任何想法都不感兴趣。相反，我通常会选择一种颜色来回应我之前在画布上使用的颜色。

Q7: What about colors? How do you describe the colors you use in your work?

A7: The use of color is very intuitive for me, even if it could have its own vocabulary. In my case, I’m not interested in articulating any ideas using colors. Instead, I usually choose a color in reaction to what I previously applied on the canvas.

一个艺术家的想法很偶然，

错误的积累开辟了新的方向。

Q：2021，你画了很多黑眼睛的小怪物，背景颜色非常鲜艳，但之后你用非常暗的颜色来画你的小怪物。你是如何概念化你的作品的呢？然后到了2022年，它实际上与你在2021所做的完全相反，你用明亮的颜色来描绘你的怪物，但背景颜色却更加柔和了。

·A：是的，有一段时间，我的工作室里有一幅非常亮的黄色单色画，背景非常平滑流畅，我对它也非常满意，以至于不敢再碰它。然后，有一次我在那个黄色背景旁边调颜料，当我打开一罐黑色颜料时，不知怎的，罐子就在这个美丽的黄色背景上撒开了。一开始我很难过，但我决定在油漆还湿的时候在黄色背景上涂一些东西。我画了一种有牙齿的黑色怪物。所以它几乎是一个障碍，就像黄色背景上的一幅黑色的画。那次绘画“事故”发生在2019年，我在2021年又回顾了那幅画。从那时起，我重新解释了它，它就变成了另一种东西。许多事情都是偶然发生的。你作为一个艺术家的想法是很偶然的。

就我而言，我允许自己犯错误。比方说许多科学家在实验室里，当他们允许自己不去做他们知道的事情时，他们发现了一些东西。他们探索他们不知道的领域，他们允许自己积累错误，他们允许自己做一些不正确的事情。所谓的错误的积累，往往会开辟新的方向。

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Q8: In 2021, you have painted a lot of black little monsters with big eyes, and with a very bright color on the background, but then you use very dark colors to create your little monster. How would you conceptualize your work? And then in 2022, it's actually quite the opposite to what you did in 2021, using brighter colors to paint your monsters, with a more mild color in the background. Could you tell us about that?

A8: Yes, for a while, I had a very bright yellow monochrome painting in my studio, the background was so smooth, and I was so happy with it that I was afraid to touch it. And then, one day, I was mixing paint next to that beautiful yellow background, and while opening a jar of black paint, some of it split on that beautiful yellow background. I was sad at first, but I decided to paint something on that yellow background while the paint was still wet. I painted a sort of black monster with some teeth. So it is almost an obstruction. It's like a splash of black painting on a yellow background. That accident happened in 2019, and I looked back at that painting again in 2021. And from there, I reinterpreted it, and it became something else. Many things happen by accident. In my case, I allow myself to make mistakes. Many scientists in their laboratory sometimes discover things when they allow themselves to experiment, going somewhere unknown. The accumulation of what could be called mistakes often opens new directions.

Q：你在2022年改变了创作方法，所以你不再使用浅色背景和深色人物，而是开始使用柔和的背景和较亮的人物，这是为什么呢？

·A：在从一件事到另一件事上，我并不觉得会有一个“为什么”。我一直试图通过搜索和探索来做不同的事情。并不是每个行为都是理性的决定，相反，我是在尝试不同的事情，有时我喜欢它，有时我不喜欢它。而事实是，有很多画我都失败了，然后把它们统统扔掉。如果我对自己创作的一幅画不满意，我会把它们放进垃圾桶，有时只是把它们收起来，等以后再看。我们永远不知道我对他们的看法会如何改变。

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Q9:But you changed your approach in 2022 , so you don’t use the light background with a dark figure, you start using a mild background and a brighter figure, but why is that?

A9:I don't think there's a "why?" you move from one thing to the other. I'm always trying to do different stuff by searching and exploring. I don't think that every act has rational decisions to it, I m trying different things instead, and sometimes I like it, and sometimes I don't. The truth is, there are many paintings that I fail and throw them away. If I'm not happy with a painting I created, I will put them in the trash or sometimes simply put them away and look at them later. We never know how my opinion about them could change.

Acrylic paint on canvas, 135x150cm, 2022

Q：你平时在上海的生活是怎样的呢？

·A：很简单，我想我大部分时间都花在工作室里。如果我不在工作室，估计就是在教书，有空的时候我会去看我的朋友。我的生活就是去看展览、教书和在工作室里创作。

Q10: Could you tell us more things about you and your life in Shanghai?

A10: It is straightforward. I spend a lot of time in my studio. If I don’t do that, I will teach. Also, visiting exhibitions and spending time with friends.

Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 135x150cm, 2022

Q：在封锁期间，你有画什么吗？

·A：没有，不幸的是我已经困在公寓里很久了，也不可能去工作室。这段时间，我做了些图片和视频编辑，好歹也算是做了些工作。我这里还有一台电钢，没事会弹一弹。

Q11: Did you paint anything during the lockdown?

A11: Nope, unfortunately, I have been locked down in my apartment all month. Therefore, there is no possibility of going to my studio. I did some editing of pictures and videos. So I did put a little bit of work on those things. I do have an electric piano, so I m regularly playing.

幽默是一种，

过滤和理解现实世界的方式。

Q：哇哦，你也做视频剪辑。你在视频中一人分饰二角可真太有趣了，能谈谈你的创作吗？

·A：我网站上的照片什么的可以帮助大家更好地理解我的工作和个性。这些并不是被视为独立的艺术作品的必要手段，而是更像是对我是谁，以及我如何看待和体验这个世界的心理解释。我不认为自己只是一名画家，我喜欢绘画，但有时我会做需要用其他媒介来做的事情。我不觉得这些照片与我的画有直接关系，但它们可以帮助我来理解。而且，幽默是我实践中的一个重要组成部分。在你提到的那个视频中，我在我的工作室和我自己交谈，这可以用不同的方式来解释。对我来说，幽默是表达我的想法的重要工具。并且我相信，幽默是一种过滤和理解现实世界的方式，它提供了一种距离，让观众通过他们的理解和经验了解我的实践和个性。

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Q12: Cool, you also do the video editing. How interesting that you’re talking to yourself in that video. Can you tell us more about that?

A12: On my website, there are some photographs and a few other things that could help better understand my work and personality. Those are not necessary means to be seen as independent works of art, but somehow more as a psychological interpretation of who I am and how I see and experience the world. I don't see myself as a painter only, I enjoy painting, but sometimes I do other things that need to be done using another medium. I don't think those photographs are directly related to my paintings, but they can help to understand that humor is a big part of my practice. In the video you mention, I'm visiting myself in my studio and talking with myself. This can be interpreted in different ways, but it could also help the viewers to understand my personality. For me, humor is a vital tool to articulate my ideas. I believe humor could be used as a filter to question the real world by giving space that allows the viewers with their own understanding and experience to get into my practice and my personality.

Q：我喜欢你幽默的讲法。幽默在你这里成了一种举重若轻的方式，因为你把图像塑造成了漫画，对吗？它非常容易被接受。

·A：观众可以按照他们想要的方式来解释这些作品。事情总是可以被概念化的，但老实说，我们大多数人都在与这么多困难和无意义的生活中挣扎，所以为什么不试着让人们的脸上露出微笑呢。当然，我也看到过人们看着我的画完全感到困惑，其他人在他们面前微笑，还有其他人想开始谈论它。所有这些都可以开启任何类型的对话，不管是否有趣，但我也只是简单地画，因为我需要并享受乐趣，并且希望观众能简单地享受它。

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Q13: I love the way that you use humor. So that's what we're talking about humor is because you're making the image like the comic, right? It's very easy and accessible. I think the whole thing makes sense to me now.

A13: The viewers can interpret those works the way they want. Things can always be conceptualized, but let's be honest here; most of us are struggling with our life with so many difficulties and non-sense, so why not try to put a smile on people's faces. Of course, I have seen people totally confused looking at my paintings, others smiling in front of them, and others wanting to start talking about it. All of this can open any type of conversation, interesting ones or not, but lightly I also simply do those paintings because I need and have fun doing it, and hope the viewers can simply enjoy it.

Detail

作品完成后，

它便不再属于艺术家。

Q：所以你更喜欢用理性的表达方式来作画，还是就随心所欲地画？

·A：就像我说的，也许第一件事是，我的绘画是一种活动，去理解世界上的无稽之谈。对我来说，这是当你处理无意义、感到绝望和无力时的一种反应。面对它你能做什么呢？就像我之前说的，我认为一个作家或电影人想做点什么，是因为他或她有一个信息要传达。因此，在这种情况下，它是不清楚的，也许我并不想清楚地或是非常精确地表达我对世界或生活的理解和感受，而是让观众可以通过自己的理解来感知。我相信对于一个艺术家来说，一旦作品完成了，那么这幅作品就不再属于艺术家了，它属于去看作品的观众。观众可以用他们想要的方式，来重新解读作品。例如，一个伟大的批评家不是写艺术家想做什么的人，而是写一些艺术家有时甚至没有想到的东西，但这对批评家和阐明艺术家作品的人来说是有意义的。所以我希望我的作品足够开放，观众能从中找到他们想要的答案。

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Q14: Do you prefer painting in a rational expression or do you just do it in a random manner, by following your heart?

A14: As I said, maybe the first thing is that painting is an activity that helps make sense of the world's nonsense. It is a reaction to when you deal with nonsense and feel hopeless and powerless. What can you do? Like I said before, I think a writer or a filmmaker wants to do something because they have a message to share. So, in this case, it is not clear. Maybe I don't want to open the "clear" and exact articulation of my understanding or my feeling about the world or my life, but something that the viewers can perceive with their own knowledge. So hopefully, my work is open enough for viewers to make their own interpretation of it. I believe as soon as an artist's work is done, the work doesn't belong to the artist anymore; it belongs to the viewer who goes to see the result. Viewers can reinterpret the work in the way they want. A great critic, for example, is not someone who writes what the artist wants to do but sometimes writes something that even the artist didn't think about, something that gives a new meaning. So hopefully, my work is open enough to interpretation, and any viewers can find something in it.

Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 135x150cm, 2021

Q：你提到了无意义的概念，这让我想起了爱德华·李尔的《无意义之书》。但它可能更具讽刺意味。

·A：是的，我喜欢“无意义”这个词。因为这些无稽之谈也有它的道理。我并不一定想赋予我做的每一件事以意义，因为我只是在捣捣弄弄，直到有事情出现，大多数时候，最后，它以奇怪和奇怪的东西告终，可我喜欢这样。有时，如果你试图理性地定义某件事，你会很受限制。那么，如何表达出观众可以感知到的想法呢？有时候只需要给予空间。观众理解你作品的唯一途径，是通过他自己的知识和经验。所以如果我告诉你我的作品是关于一种非常简洁的，等等的，它就变得主观，即使这样也不一定帮助观众理解它。所以大多数时候，艺术家们都在扮演一些“未知的”的角色，当作品完成时，也许是在那个时候来定义作品是关于什么的，至少对于我所做的作品类型是这样。一旦作品完成，它的解释就不一定只属于艺术家自己了。

专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客

Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 135x150cm, 2021

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Q15: You know, you mentioned the idea of nonsense, it reminds me a book called The Book of the Nonsense by Edward Lear. But it’s more ironic.

A15: Yeah, I like the idea of nonsense because the nonsense can sometimes give sense. I don't necessarily want to give meaning to every single thing I do because I simply play around until something comes out, and most of the time, in the end, it finished as something strange and weird, and I like it that way. If you try to rationally define something, you can get blocked. So how can you articulate an idea that the viewer will fully perceive? Sometimes you just need to give some space. Most of the time, the way viewers will understand your work depends on their own knowledge and experiences. So if I tell you my work is about blah, blah, blah, in a very concise way, it becomes subjective, and even that will not necessarily help the viewer to understand it. So most of the time, there is ”unknown” part artists are playing with, and when the work is done, it is at that moment that maybe it's time to define what the work is about, at least for the type of work I do. As soon as the work is finished, its interpretation doesn't necessarily belong only to the artist himself anymore.

Chopin: Nocturne Op.9 No.1

Q：音乐和你的绘画有什么联系吗？

·A：我不这么认为。我学习古典音乐，并且训练了很多年，我非常热爱它。我画画时并不怎么考虑音乐，只是听音乐，它可以帮助我培养一种情感，一种对世界的某种理解或感知。所以我认为，音乐是我内心的养料，我需要将它作为智力的食物。

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Q16: Is there any connection between music and your painting?

A16: I don't think so; I studied classical music and trained for many years, but I enjoy playing the piano. I don't think about music while painting, but I listen to it as it's part of my life. I believe music can help develop your sensibility and help you understand and perceive the world differently. It is also inner nourishment for me; I need it emotionally and intellectually like food.

专访｜Vasken Mardikian：寻找无意义的意义博文精选西西弗斯艺术小组崇真艺客