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Mana Contemporary(M):Who are you and what do you do?

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Loy Luo(L):Hello everyone, my name is Loy Luo. I am a full-time artist from Beijing, China. My artistic medium is multiple. I paint, sculpt and do calligraphy, and also I make videos. The art I produce so far is based on a project that is a conceptual work of art.

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M：How‘s being in a creative collaborative space like Mana benefited your work or relationships?

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L：I came to the United States two years ago. I am so excited to have a studio at Mana Contemporary now. After coming to Mana, I felt that my creative state was fully opened. It gives me a good communication atmosphere with the artistic community from every corner of the world. The interaction of artists creates an exciting environment to work. This kind of communication is very important for artists, because it brings some up-to-date information and stimulates some ideas

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M：Why are you participating in the open house?

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L：I'm very excited to participate in the Open House.This year, I've traveled a lot and did many different artworks, but all these works are focused on one job: the window project. In fact, the window project is a series of variations of windows, which consists of many parts. The theme of windows spawns many sub-themes. At September, the International association of female Artists in USA did my online exchange show which titled Bleak and Prosperous.I used works of different times and situations to illustrate the relationship between the variability of time and space Windows and the richness of artistic creation and appreciation.This deceptively simple fact calls into question the active and forced idolization of today's successful commercial artists. And I also try to answer the possible of unity between the diversity and”this artist“

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Mana’s ongoing Open House gives me the opportunity to show sub-projects or small systems of the window projects with different faces each time, so I'm excited. For example, in Open House in October, I showed a show named Window Book. In This exhibition, I mainly want to discuss the phenomenological relationship between meaning and image. That is to say, I take calligraphy as the hidden meaning behind the window of phenomena, and then reverse the "meaning" behind the window and juxtapose it with the image representing phenomena on the same plane. I think this is a response to the zero-depth trend of meaning in our time.

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At the upcoming Open House in November, I will present " Window BIAN". BIAN, pronounced in Chinese, has many meanings. I can translate it as sitting by a window, or window frame. BIAN or edge, means frame, if there's a frame, there's a window. Laozi's philosophy holds that the window is nothingness, and he emphasizes the use of "nothingness". I think even "nothing" has a certain material basis, such as frames. If art is the window of the invisible spirit, then the frame is the necessary material to help the invisible spirit present. It can be said that the frame is the more implicit, explicit, and metaphorical part between the invisible and the visible world.

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The most obvious intention that these different boxes hope to show is that even if the scenery outside the window is similar or the same, due to the development of history, the frame of the material world has changed, people's vision has changed, causing your personal experience and knowledge of the inner window to change as well. In the end, the world outside our window is always different. To convey this idea, I designed some different frames from traditional, rigid frames. While they may no longer look like frames, they will always consist of a few edges. In fact, on a deeper level, I am using a framework of deconstruction and reorganization to suggest how different visual experiences are formed.

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M: What are your inspirations?

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L：This theme was originally inspired by my experience living in upstate New York last winter. During the long snowydays, I spent a lot of time looking out the window at the bleak scenery, which gave me the idea to do a concept art pieceabout Windows. This Window sensitivity may also be due to the fact that I spent half a year working and living in awindowless semi-basement studio in Brooklyn, completing a work of homeless action art. However, I am able to deepenand change this theme constantly, on the one hand, because the changing situation of sojourners makes me deeply feel thedifferent feelings and understandings of different time and space; On the other hand, it comes from thinking about thevery subtle cultural clash and fusion that happened to me. This imperceptible genetic influence on my artistic expressionis like an invisible window in my brain.

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Finally, to be honest, I was also inspired by the environment of Mana. There are artists from all over the world. In myopinion, every artist is a window. I hope to have the opportunity to contact more different Windows and finally show myown unique window to the world. Thank you very much.

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Video by Nathaniel Rosario (Mana Contemporary)

The text has been partially adjusted by Loy Luo