Xiaohan Luo

“What does the sound you hear sound like? ”

Since childhood, the endless tinnitus along with my growth. My ears are like a filter, too high and too faint sound frequencies are not effective for me. I can't feel insects, birds, or even the slightest sound of walking or talking. This brings me a deep sense of insecurity and regret.

However, it was a gift for me to study sound from another unique perspective. Since words cannot reach it, paintings are the best media. I use Chinese ink and brushes to record every movement of my body: my hand or arm while listening to natural sounds such as wind, water or classical music played by the orchestras. Meanwhile, I make some small pieces into book forms to let people touch and read every stroke I felt. In the end, I combine the paintings created at different times and places together to create a huge, stitched time and space field, and experience the existence of sound from an unfamiliar angle.

Though I can't feel them thoroughly, I can compose my own chapter.

Welcome, to feel my silence, my sound.

Emotions Stirred

Memories Aroused

Time Condensed

As I grow older, I realize increasingly that there is no such thing as a constant companion. People come and go, leaving traces and memories that are just simply words. So, I began to look at the clouds that are present and company all the time. For me, their forms are new and old every day. They weave in and out of my stories, shadowless and yet carrying my catharsis, troubles, and joys.

Photography is an important medium through which I view the world. Through the quick and narrow eye of the camera, I give clouds a personal response in different emotional and spatial contexts, placing them in the same image. In each spot of the work, the cloud tells a hidden story of my encounter, reunion, and goodbye to it.

I love it, but it doesn't always know.

O ‘I never bid farewell to these clouds

Never cease to tell, like my voice knows no bounds.

Beneath their enveloping embrace,

No freshness resides but overlapping space.

Just overlapping,

Repeating

Moving

Stagnating.

Is it destiny?

Xiaohan Luo

Chá = Tea in Chinese

Drinking tea is a regular lifestyle for me. During the daily steps of washing, waking, and brewing the tea, I gradually felt the changes in the tea leaves themselves. So, I began to grasp traces of the tea leaves mingling with the water at various stages, to retain the smell and temperature of the moment.

I use handmade paper and tea-soaked paper as a starting point, and through various drying and repeated processing, I obtain different states of paper. This is an interesting and experimental work that continues to be discovered. I will continue to do this in the future.

From the past to the present, number, language, and sound always have been playing important roles in our life. It is invisible and powerful. They are intertwined, dependent on each other, playing wonderful music of communication.

However, due to my hearing problems since childhood, I would pay more attention to the sound that I heard every minute. To me, it is not only an irreversible regret but also a nontypical life. During these years, I made a lot of effort to learn languages and tried to speak like normal. However, a subtle gap always exists. I cannot separate some numbers according to their pronunciation in a similar way in Chinese. Meanwhile, there are also words with similar pronunciations in English.

In everyday life, sound is invisible and esoteric. The only way to get accurate numbers of sound is to measure them with instruments. Numbers and language are semi-visible to us. They act as invisible clues in people's daily conversations, in books, and in all kinds of social situations.

I use my camera to record subtle movements, edit into six minutes of video. Just breathe and feel it. 

https://vimeo.com/646012995