I Yen Chen

"Wild Wild Kept" is about the relationships, thoughts, beings, and emotions that are kept in captivity but cannot be domesticated; disciplined yet escape in the gaps.

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In human history, human beings domesticated animals as livestock; domesticated plants into crops, and shaped the appearance of the external environment through desires, dreams, and emotions, and defined the relationship between themselves and the outside world, then in order to feel settled and recognized. But at the same time, humans are also enclosing themselves unconsciously in this pasture called "modern society," domesticated by life; domesticated by each other. In "Wild Wild Kept," the landscapes depicted by the artist are not real "nature," but captive yet wildly growing plants in the human living environment. These plants are in the field occupied by human beings, indicating an untamed, dynamic energy.

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When talking about the relationship between humans and nature, Philippe Descola mentioned that due to the science of distinction, humans mistakenly think, or even believe, that humans and non-humans live in different worlds. From then on they use a subject-object relationship to imagine the link between man and nature, and pretend to be a domesticator. But the reality is that no one is outside the chain of life. While we tame the world, we tame ourselves and constrain the many possibilities as a living on earth.

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This series of works range from sculpture, installation to painting, blending 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional works, recording the dynamic energy witnessed by the artist in the outside world. Through composite media, and through these works, the artist responds to how these subtle tremors are found in this seemingly solid and still daily life. There are no people in these landscapes, yet the footprints of people are everywhere.

 

So remember it! Be a wild kept, don't be tamed so easily, and don't arbitrarily domesticate others.