CA talk|uvzhu: Fragment

The creation of this era- a rebellion and revolution against the dominant culture

Every era has its potential aesthetic genre. Born under the grim reality of high-tech consumerism , millennials treat aesthetics as anesthesiology to solve the unsolved problems in their parents’ culture. Does the integration of goods and art increase the projection intensity and scope of de-meaning center? For half a century, suffering from the hunting-like economic aesthetics of Midas, the trend art seems to have produced a scheme, under which artists use some brand symbols and other stylized features to create a fetishistic food city, which is endowed with a new meaning in the deviant desire of the youth group and becomes an anti-unity rebellion which need to crack the valuable things in the past experience.

In the 21st century, science and technology and the Internet present all the symbols and codes of society, values and discourse in front of modern people without screening. Education has been unable to set a standard with centralized power, which undoubtedly creates more confusion. Young artists can only put their idolized needs into themselves and more practical commodities. In the context of post-colonialism, a belief in oneself has been established, and a more practical creative form than any financial game has grown.

UV Zhu, whose real name is Zhu Youwei, was born in Hefei, Anhui Province in 1993. UV Zhu said that his interest in painting began in kindergarten. He enrolled in professional art training in high school and majored in exhibition and beauty in college. From 2015 to 2018 after graduating from college, he worked in interior design and rendering for three years. In this stage of accumulating experience and learning, he became very interested in new software and design technology, and MD, as a new creative software at that time. So he started self-study journey with his enthusiasm. It was in that process that he came into contact with a large number of clothing-related materials and became interested in fashion, thus starting off his career as a freelance artist.

At the beginning of 2021, UV Zhu entered the field of NFT encryption art. In this scene, he saw the possibility of connecting popular culture with art, which has the same gene as his creative intention, and the skilled control ability of digital design software also paved the way for him to enter this scene. Four years’ university education + three years’ experience as a designer + two years’ work practice as a freelance artist together provided UV Zhu a complete visual language architecture pedigree by looking at his previous work Guccimen Series uploaded on CA platform.

From birth to university, to work and start a family after graduation, UV Zhu never moved from his birth place, a city with profound cultural traditions. Before the birth of his child, he liked long-distance travel very much. During break, he often travel to different cities, taste local specialties, visit old streets and experience local customs.

From his experience, UV Zhu always kept himself in a very smooth state, and he himself couldn’t explain how the drama in his creation came into being, and prefer not to explain. His formal education in arts does not limit his creative thinking. The relationship between various material elements, symbols and themes in his works clearly adheres to a set of rigorous logic, and this contradiction harmoniously exists in his works, and brings rich space for imagination and interpretation. He is good at providing all sensibility to the viewer by means of dissimilation of human face or erasing gender characteristics. As he said, “no thinking and intuition” is his creative view.

Therefore, the creation is condensed into pictures and texts of memory materials and aesthetic genes acquired by him, and his intuition makes the work. Basically, this is an inevitable trend in the post-modern context, when art is looking for originality at a high speed, meaning will be invalid-what we are willing to identify as super cool!

Throughout UV Zhu’s works, we can find two major themes:

firstly, fashion, which is mainly based on symbolic elements such as street culture and luxury logo, has a considerable sense of separation from his personality. He said that he didn’t try to get involved in this lifestyle, let alone like it, just because of an intuition of visual needs and a kind of thinking about fashion and trend culture from himself-since the “Young Storm” , fashion itself has a rebellious ideological core. When he chose these brand logo as visual icons, he actually acknowledged the historical and social significance of the individuality and differences behind these symbols.

secondly, there are some fragments of himself left in his works including his love for food and nature. There is some overlap between his work and his real experience. The experience of growing up in rural areas as a teenager is hidden under his modern visual creation, and it has become the source of the unadorned unpretentious temperament in his works.

The most obvious examples, such as the woven headgear of tribal style in Opposing Interpretation, the close relationship with nature in Fairy Tales, and the small and tenacious wildflowers and fern vegetation overflowing in the mouth, overlap with the geographical features of my hometown in my memory, and there is an indescribable kindness. The series Mouth is derived from the expression on his son’s crying face, and the abundant plant materials are also a potential metaphor for the growth of life-UV Zhu said that although his parents don’t know what he is doing, they have always been very supportive. And this experience is mapped to his identity and experience of being a father now. The lively sense of color in his pictures, the dancing and expanding gestures often shown by the characters in his paintings, and the enthusiasm and vitality are derived from the firm support and love of his parents.

In this issue of CA Talk, we talk to uv Zhu. From the conversation, we may be able to understand how his aesthetic and life philosophy influence his creation, dig out the fragments left by various materials on him, and try to find out the hidden sources behind him.

Dialogue:

CA: You were born in Anhui, went to college in Anhui, and continued to stay in Anhui as a freelance designer after graduation. What do you think attracts you to Anhui?

UV Zhu: Although from an artistic point of view, Anhui has many unique things, such as Wuhu iron paintings, Huizhou woodcarving and Huizhou architecture. I like these traditional arts very much, but it’s not that attractive. It’s just that I’ve lived here all the time, and I’m rather curtilage myself, so I’ll settle here for the time being.

CA: Is Marvelous Designer the first software you learned to use?

UV Zhu: No, it’s the second software I studied. At that time, I was still in the learning stage, and I was very interested in new software and technology. MD was rarely seen in the creative field at that time, so I went to study with curiosity.

CA: Was your interest in fashion and clothing before or after this?

UV Zhu: I didn’t become interested in clothing until I studied MD, and all this was full of uncertainty. Even if I look back now, I can’t tell why I chose to learn these softwares by myself. But anyway, I am very happy that I made such a choice.

CA: What is fashion to you? What do you view on the consumerism of fashion?

UV Zhu: It’s a way to express myself, and it’s also the most important direction in the process of exploring my personal style. I have tried a lot in this field and gained a lot at the same time. Consumption should be rational, but it is very difficult to achieve it completely. It depends on how you choose between immediate satisfaction and delayed satisfaction. I don’t spend rationally myself, and things I buy impulsively turn to be idle.

CA: I will think that wearing clothes with logo designs will obliterate people’s personality, because the label function of logo itself is too loud, and it is easy to overwhelm individuals, but it seems like trend. This is a culture that emphasizes individuality and differences very much. Why do you prefer to use this element?

UV Zhu: There are profound details and story background behind those logo. Is not a simple symbol and label. They used to represent individuality and differences. And brand symbols have not changed, but the consumer groups are changing.

CA: Do you think of yourself as someone in your work? Or do you have a creative muse?

UV Zhu: I will put myself into some cartoon creations. Although I didn’t move in front of the computer, my heart actually swam in the creative environment. Maybe this is also a kind of narcissism.

CA: The faces in Opposing Interpretation, The Alien and The Mouth of Madness are alienated. Why? Will faces reveal too much information?

UV Zhu: The figurative face will limit the viewer’s imagination. I hope that everyone who sees the work will have richer and more diversified feelings.

CA: I don’t want to limit my imagination, but I want to express myself. This seems to be contradictory. It even makes me wonder what prompted you to create. As you said, you are not a person who pays great attention to consumerism and pursues a flashy lifestyle, and also quite rejects commercialization, so is it a bit Duchamp’s “urinal” to create for you?

UV Zhu: I am very exclusive of commercial creation, and prefer to show myself freely. Therefore, in fact, I have not been able to adapt to the form of business expression, but only treat business cooperation with the attitude of good starting to a happy ending. Everyone has some contradictions. Everything I do is out of interest.

CA: Is this the reason why you always try to get rid of the limitation of meaning and emphasize the visual experience in your creation? Are you unconsciously using some symbols and icons to create this feeling, and also give these symbols some meaning?

UV Zhu: Usually, the elements I use have no special purpose. Maybe it’s just that I like it or I think it’s more interesting. I usually browse a large number of works, and as long as I am inspired, I immediately start to act. So I have tried many styles, and gradually formed my own style.

CA: What do you think your style is? Have you tried to summarize?

UV Zhu: I haven’t summarized this problem. However, from the comments of friends and practitioners around me, “avant-garde, forward-looking, pioneering and bold” often appears.

CA: So are you the kind of person who can only do what interests you, dislike formalism and meaningless learning?

UV Zhu: Something like that. Interest is my best teacher. Only in this way can things be done to the extreme. I don’t completely blame the negative things on the environment, especially when everyone is in the same environment. I reflect on whether my attitude leads to this result.

CA: Your series “The Mouth Of Madness”, “Opposing Interpretation”, “Fairy Tale” and some illustrations contain a lot of natural plants. Did you have much experience related to nature when growing up?

UvZhu: I have always liked nature very much. I lived in the countryside before junior high school. The main reason is that the brain hole is relatively large. I like to try to do some weird and exaggerated visual effects occasionally. On the one hand, it can broaden one’s thinking, on the other hand, it can satisfy one’s curiosity.

CA: That is to say, nature has an influence on your creative thinking and even your way of thinking, not just some kind of visual experience. So what are these effects?

UV Zhu: Sometimes I think about the relationship between man and nature, and use my works to express my views. This is very complicated, with harmony, balance, opposition and even destruction.

CA: The influence of individual life experience on artists’ creation is often the most intuitive. You were promoted to be a dad in September last year, and does it influence your creation and life?

UV Zhu: It really gave me some inspiration, and the mouth series was inspired by him. But it doesn’t have much influence on the creative style for the time being. Because taking care of babies is really a huge challenge for novice parents. I seldom go out for a long trip after the baby is born. I don’t dislike such a change. Maybe when the baby grows up, some of his ideas and perspectives on the world will give me new inspiration.

CA: Let’s talk about this series of works “Mouth” in detail. Intellectually and visually, what do you think when you create?

UV Zhu: Children’s crying can make people very upset and uncomfortable, so this series is visually unpleasant. Baby crying itself is a survival instinct, so I use the dense vegetation as a metaphor for this strong vitality that wants to break through everything.

CA: How did you come into contact with nft? Do you think that turning to the nft field will affect your creation?

UV Zhu: At the beginning of the NFT market, I have already received some great invitations from NFT organizations. I think it is very friendly for artists, so as to better realize their self-worth. I am also optimistic about NFT, and I also hope that the domestic market can be opened and improved quickly.

CA: You said earlier that “brands and symbols have not changed, but the consumer groups are changing”. So what changes do you think have taken place in the NFT scene? Why did it change?

UV: NFT makes art no longer superior, and collecting art is no longer exclusive to elite and upper class. The art consumer groups have changed from small people to the masses, and ordinary people also have the opportunity to own unique collections. But what makes me pessimistic is that the influx of a large number of inferior works of art and hype are destroying the rigor of art.

CA: Does the change of consumer groups have a direct impact on your creative thinking? After all, this is a group of consumers completely different from the viewers in real life scenes? If so, will you also consider running your own community?

UvZhu: I have never thought about this problem before, but this year I have plans to prepare a fashion brand of my own, so I will seriously consider these problems.