Reporter: Anais Martane

Artist Biography: Born in China and now living in New York, Chao Sun is currently a crossover conceptual image artist.

Chao Sun is a crossover young artist from the financial sector, who holds multiple identities as a conceptual image director and performance artist, and a short film video producer. He enjoys the attention of the art world for his talent and originality of thought..

The 2024 Italy “MEDUSA, la Gorgone” Art Prize Exhibition was held at the headquarters of the Villa Trossi Uberti Art Foundation in the scenic city of Livorno. This exhibition, organized by ISOLART GALLERY, “Trossi-Uberti” Art Foundation, in collaboration with the Tuscany Region, the Livorno Municipal Government, the National Association of Fine Arts of Italy, and the NOMYA Association for the Development of Culture, brings together the best artists from all over the world. With his work “FARMERS AND TURKEYS”, artist Chao Sun stood out from the crowd and won the Premio di Dinamico Visuale Eccellente (Outstanding Dynamic Visualization). On this occasion, the famous French art reporter Anais Martane interviewed Chao Sun in New York.

The following is an interview by Anais Martane, a renowned French art reporter, with artist Chao Sun.

Interviewer: Anais Martane Interviewee: Chao Sun

Anais Martane: Hello Chao Sun, thank you for giving me an opportunity to interview you. As a well-known crossover artist, what kind of chance motivated you to get involved in art when you were doing finance?

Chao Sun: My dedication and love for art is something I have pursued since I was a child and it has never stopped and will never stop. For me, art is always first when it comes to art and finance. I studied and worked in finance for family reasons because my parents thought that finance was the easiest way to get a good job, while pursuing the path of art was more grueling, and I never gave up on it. However, I am grateful for the decision my parents helped me make to pursue a career in finance so that I could have the financial means to support my artistic pursuits. Of course, the most important motivation for me to cross over to art came from an unconventional view of art put forward by the German artist Joseph Beuys: “Everyone is an artist”. This viewpoint inspired me to re-examine and re-measure myself from different perspectives, to break through the fixed boundaries of my own thinking, and to view and understand art from different dimensions and thoughts.

Moreover, this viewpoint has further energized me to be more imaginative and creative in my art, giving me my own unique art form and artistic expression.

Anais Martane: Do you believe in “talent”? Do your intuitions in conceptual art images come from some kind of “talent” or are they influenced by some works?

Chao Sun: I can't say they come from talent, but I've always had a desire to create something at my heart. The talent that people often talk about is actually a perennial exploration of artistic creation. Whether it's words or paintings or images, they all complement each other. Words are more about logical relationships, paintings are more about expression, and images are more about purification and subtraction. More often, the line between them is very blurred, and concepts and ideas are the centerpiece. I'm not easily influenced by others, and I don't read too much materials. When learning from others, I open one door that I can try and then open the other one. I like to accept new and interesting ways of expression, but I don't try to emulate them. Instead, I will go to a different path to the end, because I think art should be highly self-contained.

Anais Martane；Why do you prefer conceptual art photography? Can you talk about your understanding of it?

Chao Sun: The principles of conceptual art are “avant-garde, critical and original”. I want to be free from the constraints and influences of traditional art, to look at the world independently with ideas and concepts from sociological and philosophical thinking, to participate in society and interpret it with the purest and most natural things, and to face up to the inner concepts that exist with conceptual art photography instead of displaying the superficial concepts that are seen. I want to make myself more pure, completely from my personal understanding of things, society, and life, etc., put my personal concepts on top of things, so that it can be expressed, and photograph my inner perception of the world.

I think the biggest benefit of conceptual art is that it opens up one's mind; it is something metaphysical, and something purely spiritual. Sometimes it downplays some of the material things, kind of what Freud wrote, that it's devoted to the spirit outside of this everything. It is completely unencumbered by any other element of reality, and it is something entirely self-contained. Although it is abstracted, it expresses the creator's unique view of society. When it comes to conceptual art, everyone thinks of it as weird, absurd, even fearful, anxious, etc., but in reality, it's entirely a feedback that you generate on social construction. I often say, “Each of us is a product of history, and no one can run away from the destiny of the times and society. Even if we live in the same space or era, we tend to have different views on things, which is the result of varying ways in which our common humanity is utilized among individuals.” The most touching thing about conceptual art photography is that it demonstrates the connotation of reality through the visual language of “light and shadow”, touches the sincere emotions of the creator and the viewer, and leaves the viewer willing to think and reflect while enjoying the works, which also serves as a warning to the society, and encourages it to progress in a better direction.

Anais Martane；Many of your surreal conceptual images are very magical, where do you get these inspirations from?

Chao Sun: Generally, I'm inspired by what I read and what I experience and see in my work and life. I love reading philosophy, and I am lucky to have the ability to paraphrase, comprehend and combine my own ideas and concepts, and to paraphrase these into the figurative language of conceptual art images through the written word. For example, if I see an inspirational story, a certain phenomenon in society, some situation in life, or a philosophical passage, a picture may form in my mind. Although it's a vague image at first, as time goes by, it becomes clearer in my mind, and then I draw a sketch and put it together with a conceptual text, then the entire piece of artwork is basically shaped. But in the actual shooting process, there are three possibilities: the first is matching, that is, it fully meets the ideal of self-creation; the second is misalignment, that is, it fails to achieve the effect you want; and the third is transcendence. It may be completely changed from the initial idea, but it is even better than the initial idea. Also, talking to fellow artists can inspire me. Sometimes something just presents itself in my head during the chat. Now some people shoot and don't know what they're going to shoot. But I've never been in that situation. I always have an endless supply of things to shoot because I want to turn everything I see into a conceptual art image that I want.

Anais Martane；How to find a connection between an idea and reality through video images?

Chao Sun: Generally, I sketch first, then write my own concepts into text through the sketches; but there is no fixed way to do this, because there are certainly variables in practice, and sometimes the text comes first, and then the images; Sometimes, after the image has been shot, the image can become the text, and the text can also become the image; they actually complement each other, and no one can be separated from the other. As for how to hold the degree between them take time to figure out. This connecting point is the framework I build after I think of the concept, what props, scenery, lighting, models are needed, explaining to the models how they should pose, move, stand, as well as taking into consideration the time, place and other factors, so I'm both the planner and the director.

Anais Martane；Most of your works reflect profound social realities and have been modeled by many of your peers. Can you tell us a little bit about your original idea and the process of creating this classic work, FARMERS AND TURKEYS?

Chao Sun: The series “FARMERS AND TURKEYS” was conceived a long time ago and I shot it in China during the epidemic. It was inspired by Russell's fables. Combined with the realities of today's society and my experience in the financial sector, it can be said that FARMERS AND TURKEYS is a microcosm of today's society. Today's society is characterized by pressure from various sources, such as society, the environment, work, life, relationships, and the maintenance of family ties. Under these pressures, people are forced to move forward and live by money and materialistic desires; those who are burdened with these pressures become numb, stiff and mummified. “When a desire overdraws his energy beyond his physical capacity, he is not far from death”, this is the concept that the work is meant to express. When I shoot this series of works, I am especially calm and objective. I want to stand in a neutral position to look at things, and it also gives me a new understanding of people and things.

Anais Martane: Very often, the images of conceptual images can provide many different interpretations, and everyone who sees them interprets them in his or her own way. But do you have a standard answer as a creator and director?

Chao Sun: I'm not going to give a standard answer to that one. Artistic creation is the most genuine form of human expression. We should not underestimate the intelligence of the viewer. If you give a particularly accurate answer, it will limit the viewer's thinking. I hope that opinions vary from individual to individual, and ten people have ten feelings when they see the work. We like to awaken some of the ideas that have been lying dormant in people's minds. I think an artist should be warm, positional, and attitudinal. In reality, whatever form of art you create is just a different mode, a different medium. In fact, no matter what form of art you do, it is just a different mode, a different medium, and ultimately, what you want to express is the voice of your heart. What you convey should be good, a universal value that recognized by everyone.

Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to life, which gives me something to say; to creativity, which allows me to show and express myself; and to the people who appreciate my artwork, which brings us together in art.

I have always felt that conceptual art images have unlimited energy, and conceal excessive possibilities and novelties to be explored, and have the potential to respond to various “contemporaneity”, “ ideology”, and “conceptualization”. Its characteristics will induce, inspire and awaken your mindset, change, negate and clarify your thinking mode, so that you can follow the trend, live according to the trend, and return to the true nature, which is the artistic state that is both abstract and real that I want.