“Butterfly Effect” is Jhong’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. In his two recent exhibitions, “Figurative Illusion” and “Dissociate · Imaging”, Jhong Jiang-Ze creates artworks by reinterpreting existing images such as famous paintings, photographs and scenes from movies. In “Butterfly Effects”, he shifts his gaze from the external world to the internal thoughts and desires, and allows his past inspirations and bodily instincts to guide his brush on canvas. The seemingly free-handed creative process encompasses Jhong’s deepening rumination about the nature of randomness and causality. Mixing unrelated visual elements is Jhong Jiang-Ze’s way of reflecting upon his own creative process, one that bears much similarity to the butterfly effect: the initial idea of a painting is as faint as the flapping of a butterfly wings. As time passes, the many cultural and scientific disciplines from which Jhong absorbs knowledge feeds into his brushstrokes and turn the idea into an image as spectacular and chaotic as a storm.
The skirt of a woman morphs into a butterfly, staghorn ferns grow among tree branches… these otherworldly images are from “Red Butterfly” and “Staghorn Ferns and Deer-horn Twigs”, two of Jhong Jiang-Ze’s latest paintings. Jhong has made sure not to let subjective judgments or conscious inputs get in the way of the free-flowing painting process. He simply lets go of control and leaves his canvases to record the moments and images in his mind. His act of painting becomes a mysterious ritual, one that harks back to the core nature of the medium. And as Jhong subverts our conventional expectations towards paintings, he also pushes the boundaries of our view experiences.