Desolate Landscape on the Golden Screens 殘山剩水鬧金屏

Historically exported to Europe as luxury items, folding screens were admired for their ornate and “exotic” appeal — a legacy that still lingers in today’s global art context. But how do we see these objects now? Beyond their surface beauty, what layers of history, desire, and projection do they carry? Inspired by the public use of screens depicted in Shangyuan Lantern Picture (上元燈彩圖), Desolate Landscape on the Golden Screens reimagines the folding screen as a boundary — between image and space, visibility and intimacy. It is both a surface to read and a passage to move through. In this large-scale installation, I transform the screen into a spatial painting, as an Eastern garden, a structure that invites movement and bodily engagement. The work expands the idea of painting into something architectural, where the viewer’s body becomes part of the viewing process, and takes the visitors on a walk through the inner landscapes.
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屏風在歷史上曾作為奢侈品外銷至歐洲，因其華麗的工藝與「異國風情」而深受喜愛。這樣的觀看方式，至今仍在全球藝術體系中延續。然而，當我們再次面對這類物件時，是否能超越表面的裝飾性，進一步看見那精緻的表面之下所蘊含的歷史痕跡、慾望投射與錯置的文化理解？
《殘山剩水鬧金屏》受到《上元燈彩圖》中屏風作為公共場景的啟發，重新想像屏風為一種介於立體與平面、公共與私密之間的圖像空間，既是可閱讀的表面，也是一道引導身體穿行其間的通道。
在這件大型裝置中，我將屏風轉化為立體的空間繪畫，擺設出如東方園林般的結構，使其具有建築性的可行空間，引導觀者透過身體的移動感知畫面，在自身投射出的風景之中緩步前行。

Auspicious Mist Enshrouds the Grandeur of the Golden Palace
金殿霓旌籠瑞霧
2024
Acrylic and linen on American Cypress 
壓克力顏料．麻布．美國檜木
A set of two, four double-sided screens, each: 195 x 41.5 cm (legs included), Pheonix sculpture: H23 x W26 x D26 cm, Cloud sculpture: H8 x W17 x D2 cm
兩個一對的四片雙面屏風，屏風每片尺寸：195 x 41.5 cm(含屏腳)，鳳凰尺寸:H23 x W26 x D26 cm，浮雲: H8 x W17 x D2 cm​

Folding Screen Series 屏風系列

Inspired by the Coromandel lacquer screens beloved by Coco Chanel and reinterpreted by the Western fashion world as icons of an exotic “East,” Su Meng-Hung interrogates how cultural symbols are distorted and aestheticized through translation. Viewing the classical folding screen as a readable, three-dimensional pictorial space, His work draws from traditional Chinese sources such as The Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden, Dream of the Red Chamber, and The Plum in the Golden Vase, using them as templates that emerge and dissolve within his compositions.

In Su Meng-Hung’s Folding Screen series, the artist reimagines the traditional screen format as a space for visual and cultural deconstruction. Each work begins with a painted canvas, over which he repeatedly silk-screens enamel filigree patterns, botanical motifs, traditional shanshui landscapes, and erotic illustrations drawn from Chinese literature. These layers—built up with acrylic, printed imagery, and successive rounds of sanding—are carefully refined to create a smooth, lacquer-like surface. This process-intensive approach not only blurs the line between painting and craftsmanship but also conceals the traces of labor and time embedded in the making of each piece.

Combining elements of Abstract Expressionism and gestural ink painting, Su abstracts and erases classical shanshui imagery, transforming centuries-old techniques into a new visual vocabulary. Fragmented traces and worn-down textures form the language of the work, prompting viewers to reflect on how cultural meanings shift—between ornament and painting, elegance and kitsch, tradition and global reinterpretation.

蘇孟鴻的〈屏風系列〉靈感來自於香奈兒女士珍藏的烏木雕漆屏風，這些古董傢俱在西方被重新詮釋為「東方」文化的象徵，進而形塑出泛東方主義的審美物件。蘇孟鴻以此作為創作起點，將屏風視為一個可閱讀的立體畫面，並參照《芥子園畫譜》、《紅樓夢》與《金瓶梅》的傳統圖像模板，將其置入畫面中或是近一步刮除，最終構成一種去敘事化的繪畫實驗。

在〈屏風系列〉中，傳統屏風轉化為一種視覺與文化解構的載體。每件作品以畫布為底，反覆印製掐絲琺瑯紋樣、植物圖案、山水景致與古典文學中的情慾圖像等，層層堆疊壓克力顏料，再經多次打磨，使畫面呈現光滑如漆的質感。這種勞力密集的創作方式，不僅模糊了繪畫與工藝之間的界線，也抹除了藝術家在創作過程中所投注的時間與體力痕跡。

蘇孟鴻融合抽象表現與水墨的身體動作，將傳統山水圖像抽象化與抹去，使古老技法轉化為嶄新的當代表現語彙。畫面中殘留的顏料痕跡與磨蝕的紋理，構成他獨特的視覺語言，引導觀者思索：在裝飾與繪畫、優雅與媚俗、傳統與全球再詮釋之間，文化意義是如何流動與轉變的。