We recently connected with Hao Shen and have shared our conversation below.

Hao, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

This question really hits the bottom of my heart. Without a doubt, I prefer to live as an artist, despite the difficulty to get stable salaries. To begin with, as an artist, I can arrange my working schedule freely and work in a relaxed manner. For example, I can listen to audio books or music while painting without hindering the progress of my work, which would have been hard to imagine if I chose to work in a government department or school. Second, the diversified forms of artistic expression available today encourages creative workers to experiment with or discover new materials or expressions that fit and convey their ideas and works. Constant thinking and practicing are undoubtedly full of challenges and uncertainties, and I personally find that very exciting, because I can never expect in what situation I will discover the long-awaited answers and results. The element of surprise keeps me passionate about seeking and exploring. The last time I hesitated between choosing to be a professional artist and a relatively regular career was about fifteen years ago. My yearning for freedom outweighed the benefit of stable salary, because I really didn’t want to live a repetitive life, even though at that time I had many opportunities to become a university teacher or a civil servant in the government’s cultural department.

Hao, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I obtained my Bachelor‘s degree in printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in China in 2005, and since graduation I have been working as a professional artist. Right now, I am attending MFA Fine Arts program at School of Visual Arts in New York. My interest and inquiry focus on the theme of “shape.” In English, the word “shape” has two meaning, one is a noun, and the other is a verb. Shape is an indispensable factor in visual art. I start from its meaning as a noun to look for the distorted and eroded shapes in daily life, the so-called failed shapes that are not of the boring and regular industrial products. I show and record them in my paintings and video records. When it comes to “shape” as a verb, the question of what shapes “me” into the “me” today is also a significant element. Therefore, “grafting” “imitation” “replication” and “excerption” are the foci of my recent works. I consider “imitation” essentially as the conscious or unconscious behaviors that occur as people encounter and become one another; these behaviors could also serve as a form of deception to people’s vision and cognition. Based on this theoretical foundation of imitation, I now explore the method of painting with only palette knives imitate and replicate the effects of brushes. I use colors according to my emotions stimulated by the rhythm of music. My subject matters tend to be everyday objects that are irregular and contorted. The traces of time on these objects (such as dirt and rust), combined with passionate colors, counteract the monotony and banality of organized forms and unified patterns. Many people claim that painting is dead, especially figurative painting. However, I insist that my expressive language of painting is unique, and few have achieved the visual effects with the same tools I do. It deserves me feeling proud. Just kidding, I’m still alive and painting, so why should painting die?

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think the best reward for an artist comes when he successfully sells his own works. This means not only that he can improve the quality of his life, but also that he can reasonably invest in new areas of art he wants to explore. For example, with the income from selling his works, a painter can afford equipment that allows him to explore the field of video art, which happened to me. It is crucial for an artist’s career path to have minimal, if not no pressure of survival. One of my friends is able consistently produce high-quality works after cooperating with a gallery. Additionally, the sale of works means that the artist’s works resonate with his viewer on a spiritual level. Even the most profound the concepts or theories are unable to overshadow the pleasure that the artist derives from spiritual resonance, which is without a doubt the motivator of his continual career.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

It is undeniable that an unspeakable force has sculpted me into who I am today. So are there some books or images that influence my spiritual world and senses? I believe the answer is self-evident. The experience and the knowledge of the objective world cannot be acquired from personal experience alone, so reading, especially reading philosophy, is unquestionably an effective way to knowing. After all, our predecessors have revealed, summarized, and prophesied the development of the world for us. Gilles Deleuze’s The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque and Jean Baudrillard’s Symbolic Exchange And Death are the books I have repeatedly read over a long time. In Symbolic Exchange And Death, Deleuze talks about reality and imagination being confused in the same operational totality, and there is aesthetic charm everywhere; reality is no longer better than fiction, and the simulation principle has defeated the reality principle and the pleasure principle. Doesn’t it perfectly describe the world we live in? My favorite movie is the Alien series, mainly due to the unique presentation of the image of the xenomorph, the metaphor in which shapes a biological symbol perfectly. The movies inspire me to present the real-life objects with the appearance of the alien in my recent photography works. To me, reading and movies are endless joy.

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Image Credits

Hao Shen