Where Light Travels - Improvisation, Gaze, and Scene Displacement in Lin Hao-Bai’s work.
Professor and Chair of Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Normal University | Text by Bai Shi-Ming

Is time a pragmatic register that travels between minutes and seconds, or a rational cycle that symbolizes the past, present, and future? Can a moment and eternity be imprinted or marked? In the continuous displacement of time, how does life validate its time-state? Relatively speaking, space also manifests its length, width, and height through forms of displacement, to hold definition, fulfill function, and generate connections in the process of interwoven links. Here, time and space are variable, and people within, can also be said to be a kind of travel, encounter, experience, or meeting. The process and result is simply memory, illusion, sensation, or awareness, becoming dialectic between whole and fragment in the name of “matter” and “scene”...
With the extension of time or the expansion of space, life interweaves into alternating music phrases, drawings, and texts, independent and assured, confounding the known and unknown, preserved and forgotten, spontaneous, random but irreplaceable. However, how much of time and space is sealed in the description of music phrases, drawings, or texts? How many experiences have “hence” been lost, and how many “unknown” discoveries have been preserved? In the transition between fiction and reality, how does one balance the contradiction between “as if present” and “as if bygone”? Ultimately, it becomes a memento with the coexistence of time stamps and space coordinates, returning and wandering through the scene in evolving retrospect, “matter” and “scene” become vivid and radiant once again...
The remnants of music phrases, sketches, and texts can all be regarded as portable mementos and monuments of this solitary or shared journey, lingering within a certain time, in a certain space, with a certain form of vocabulary, permitting fading bleakness and eternal brilliance to coexist. It becomes the latitude and longitude, and objective of the story, due to a displacement created by passing time and space. Its twists and turns, ups and downs are written with a dynamic and still gaze. At this time, the “matter” and “scene” may be temporary like a memento or permanent like a monument, interacting between the artist, matter, and scene, undergoing gaze, touch, walk, hearing and smell...and other integrated processes to become an aftertaste, moment, and image after rumination.
The intimate relationship between “matter” and “scene” is akin to what the French philosopher of aesthetics Marc Le Bot describes in his book Images du Corps (1986): “Shape and field, interior and exterior, is one in the landscape...the body in the perceptible world and geometric terrain procure an organized sum [...] which enables us to see a whole form from earlier dismembered fragments, concurrently unraveling and entangling.” Although discernible elements, including humans (and the body) have clear boundaries, all fragments are just a “facade” of the whole, becoming disassembled and inseparable through correspondence between shape and field, constructing an interaction between interior and exterior.
Since 2009, Lin Hao-Bai’s work has entered “ritualization” following the path of changing light and shadow. “Ritualization” constructs a landscape of images and meaning with mementos and monuments, through “arranging” and “preserving” flowers, plants, or objects, completing the memory and narrative of “event.” These tangible objects are set in a reasonable, new order of time and space, in a common narrative function and similar mode of memory, to become the source material to reproduce the “event.” Similar to an enzyme, light distills and catalyzes, engraved on bygone times, connecting various fragments into a whole, creating a spiritual field that traverses barriers of time and space.
At present, the interconnection between “arrangement” and “preservation” is an important means of still life painting “ritualization,” embodying the reproduced structure between still life and field with explicit and implicit, external and internal, symbolizing the relationship between openness and closure in different time-space. As can be seen in Dossier, scattered slides, paper, or bottles on the tabletop reproduce their “original” state in the form of undisclosed objects. Light casted on the white table and wall exhibit various shadows like the background music of dancing demons, highlighting a certain “event” plot with tension. The atmosphere generated by the blank space stimulates the curiosity of the audience, observing its unknown plot. At present, the still life gradually breaks away from the resting guise of the object, and enters an active state of role-play, no longer quiet.
Furthermore, the glass jar that symbolizes a preserved state, either open or closed, equivalent to the framed slide mounts of a slide, grants undeveloped images and records an appearance that is half-concealed and half-revealed, allowing memory to temporarily remain on the record–not yet decoded—in a state of spoken and unspoken. These objects flexibly take on different roles, serving as records or mementos of past experiences, awakening the prying desire to reset this time-space of the artist or viewer in the context of simulating the scene of the “event.” The visual logic between “matter” and “scene” from this sense of ritual is accentuated through the contrast between “arrangement” and “preservation.” In the floating, dreamlike background of white tables and white walls, the early narrative of Lin’s still life paintings is established using various objects of clear imagery and vibrant colors as an approach to reminisce or commemorate the past.
From life or travel objects, to plants and flowers, these exquisite and overflowing, solitary or group “objects,” symbolize the tranquility of life, forming a “scene” full of whimsy, illusion, improvisation, or change in order, that is “arranged” and “preserved.” Through deliberate “arrangement” and symbolic “preservation” rituals, as a memento or monument to an “event,” it becomes like a drama with a script, plot, text, characters, and set design. “Conveying my views on life, interpersonal relationships and life changes” (quoted from the artist’s statement) has long since escaped the historical context of pure “sketch.” Whether camellia, rose, moth orchids, lisianthus, oriental lily, tulip, poinsettia, hyacinth or other plants, potted or freshly cut, all are fused with elegance, dignity, and order.
Flowers bloom and wilt, the seasons come and go, nature exhibits itself to the world in accord to its laws and appearances. Whether budding, blooming, or withering, “everything is surprising and unpredictable. The objects in the image are like actors on stage, improvising” for him; “Life passes every moment in variance.” (Ibid.) Every moment flowers bloom and wilt, people come and go, life is a script intertwined with constant change. Through gaze and displacement, time and space creates stretches, moments, eternity, fragments, and groups. This shore and the other are just fragments from it. Emotional fluctuation may be triggered by certain “events,” or may be based on an unexpected contact of “matter” and “scene” before us. The script is moving because of its joys and sorrows, partings and reunions. Life is more interesting due to its ups and downs and unpredictability.
Among matters that resemble impromptu performances by actors, flower branches are the most ambiguous, symbolizing fragments of nature and dismemberment of the body in representation of youth, abundance, and beauty, yet fleeting. Acts of collecting, setting, immersing, or preserving in glass jars symbolize Lin’s ritualistic commemoration of wandering between the two ends of death and temporary persistence, similar to negatives or paper manuscripts. In the background, drama is gradually purified, simplified, abstracted, becoming a silent field. Such changes are not so much a natural effect caused by the projection of internal and external light, but more from the psychology of the artist’s different emotional connections to flowers. This background, either dark or bright, facing the light or backlit, looking up or down, highlights a lament that “time is fleeting,” or youth passes swiftly. Here, both time and space are packed into a critical state, continuously bloating and waiting for the moment of collapse.
There is a sensual atmosphere governed by both vision and smell in the air, wandering in a surreal state where the virtual and real interchange, entity and imagination coexist, forming an epigraph to be read and chanted, word by word. The vibrancy of blooming branches represent an existing reality of “hence,” boisterous as if nothing has happened, fallen leaves and pistils symbolizing the arrival of the “unknown,” as quiet as a world away. Although these objects are still life, they are not static but moving, following the path of light, accumulating senescence in time, releasing decadent roots and leaves in space, embodying the principle of life’s cycle. Intertwined in surreal enchantment, from fragments to whole, then whole to fragments again, assembling and dispersing, parting and reuniting is consolidated in an alternate cycle of “as if” and “as if to forget,” difficult to tell apart.
Lin Hao-Bai’s creative pace has followed light for nearly ten years, gradually shifting from indoor flowers to outdoor scenes, and from outdoor scenes returning to potted plants. He has been continuously calibrating, exchanging different energies and knowledge, across time zones and continents, forming an impromptu adventure with a rhythm of life. It is conceivable that as the artist’s sight lines transform through gaze, a dramatic turning point of field and boundary is produced. Here, individual expressions and collective stances of the same or different plants and flowers, or unique or common characteristics of hometowns or foreign architectural sites are clearly visible, as if the director knows everything about his actors. Concurrently, one can replace roles, change scenes, and modify the script. Landscape, for Lin, is also a script with both surreal and monumental significance.
Since 2017, the emergence of the urban series represents the expansion of his research on indoor light and shadow. Travel is the link between these two ends of his changing themes. Traveling, especially foreign travel, prompted him to transcend the visual experience he was accustomed to in the past, and reactivate a blunted sensibility by these unfamiliar places. “Wandering in a strange city with my sight and perspective, observing the appearance of the city,” (Ibid.) and finding a balance between “hence” and “unknown.” The initial attempt can be seen in the original Beyond: the orchids in front of the window are almost hidden in the subdued interior, while colossal window frames and a boisterous, grimy urban landscape lay outside the window. This seemingly plausible but strange scene highlights an inner conflict between howl and calm, gaze and association when crossing the border.
Interestingly, the objects in these compositions derive from buildings and streets from different countries, eras, and styles. They are not reproductions of an original scene in sketches, but the result of grafting. They are all just actors on a “marginal” stage, each taking on different potential roles of dialogue, confrontation, transcendence, withdrawal, speaking their own words in unfamiliar lines, like a script that can be adjusted at any time during rehearsal. It can also be said that this is the result of impromptu writing by the artist from the perspective and identity of a director, like the surreal scenes in the flower series, only that the background changes from two dimensional space to three dimensional space. It is worth noting that the transformation of spatial depth represents an inversion of the artist in terms of position of matter and scene. In other words, the “absent” outdoor scene behind the artist is now a protagonist of “presence” in the composition. While the original light or shadow on the wall can no longer just project upon flower vases and jars, it is now a compass of spatial penetration, geographical location, guiding the artist on physical and mental adventures.
From the original Beyond to urban themes of the same series, Lin’s work begins to generate immense displacement from matter to scene, inside to outside. A partial revision of the original Beyond (abbreviated as adaption), eliminates flowers and replaces its window frames to show a continuation of this form of scripted improvisation. Read carefully, the window frame is precise and tidy, and the space occupied by the window is evenly divided into three parts. The wall below the picture is left blank, suggesting the height, position, and distance of the artist, creating a kind of “real” that seems alludes to “presence.” However, compared to earlier original works, we know that the artist created a “scene” that can better legitimize the unfamiliar landscape through repeated use of original portraits or images, reducing prior violations and conflicts, and achieving some degree of harmony and comfort.
The domed church at the top of the window and various buildings nearby, or even its mirage of skyscrapers in the farthest distance, are integrated with different combinations, angles, expressions of light and shadow. In other words, from the original to the adaption, adjustments and reconstructions can be made according to the artist’s understanding of structure, space, light, shadow, matter, color, temperature, seasons, and even the existence and disappearance of personal memories, akin to an adaptation of a play or music form, an ideal landscape can be continuously changed, added or eliminated. These two works combine travel memories and urban imagery, accumulated from different time-space experiences and environmental elements, and at the same time, promote the seemingly real or “realistic” landscape into a simulated “scene” with different expressions and postures, wandering between unshackled, assorted axes of time and space.
Additionally, the method of looking or gazing at the outdoors through the window is like a traveler using a telescope to look at distant scenery. It has a certain barrier limited by space or place, perhaps because resolving an unfamiliar confrontation, and looking for an indirect or redressed dialogue, is a necessary separation. That is to say, before hitting the ground, the eyes see everything in the unfamiliar city more effectively and extensively. Those who are close, see reality, those who are far, see the image. Roaming through the window of the eyes, whether near or far, its autofocus acts like a camera lens conducting a safety test of a relatively foreign state for this stranger, and looks directly at it without interference, easing this kind of visual exploration.
With the gradual expansion of displacement, it becomes necessary to go outside and re-measure the city with the pace and steps of passers-by. When people walk on the streets and among buildings, surrounded by giant objects, the insignificance of the body arises spontaneously. Human beings become points and fragments in the landscape, just like passing trees, street lamps, doors, windows, fences, bridge piers...Each acting a certain chapter of this play. Displacement not only represents space, but can also be reflected in the order of time. When night falls, travelers who continue to explore strange cities experience a different face in the dark, like nocturnal animals. When vision is unclear, they must enlarge their pupils in the dark, allowing light to become a guide again, redefining levels of brightness and darkness.
There is an ever-changing expression, whether indoor or outdoor, light and shadow, with time, seasons, dawn or dusk. After transformations of space, geography, and location, an accumulation of thousands of folds. Light travels, that is, where light reaches/in absence and presence, as well as its projection and reflection on various objects, traveling through day and night, cities and suburbs, forming a colossal energy that is ubiquitous and intangible, guiding the roaming traveler in the state of time and space without coordinates, so he does not get lost. The objects and matter experienced in these travels are “absent” of figures. His landscapes become an “empty city,” widening the distance between self and others, akin to an ideal state after removing landscape, race, culture, or ideology, becoming not so much a travel landscape, but closer to meditation, interwoven subjects, and sensory adventures of foreign lands.
Regardless of flowers or landscape, resituating the outdoors or empty cities do not mean the “absence” of others, but the manifestation of change in light and shadow as an internal and external communication. For more than ten years, Lin has followed the progress of light and the reflection-direction of shadows, and has given an emotional belonging to binaries such as matter and scene, shape and field, through improvisation (that is, free performance). Like his statement, “I am the director of the work,” the gaze formed by integrating various senses or perceptions, fragments and clips gathered and combined in different time-space transforms into true-to-life drawings, a touching script or a song of life. Each occupies its place, exhibiting its gift. However, the pandemic of these last two years have restricted this kind of displacement again, and the “Splendid Light” series was thus born out of chance.
With or without an outdoor background, light and shadow is a guide. Indoor and outdoor, light and shadow changes its intensity and brightness according to the needs of the lens or scene. Backlit is a focus on the flexibility and coexistence of real scenes or illusions. Backlit expressions demonstrate an ambiguous interlacing of interior and exterior light, that is, after exterior light is cast into the interior to reflect objects, and then reflect back objects, forming intricate changes in light and shadows. Unlike the first stage, it is more delicate and changeable in gray scale, dark in the front and bright in the back, reversing the habitual visual inertia, and entering a state of roaming light and shadow. Here, matter highlights more expressions and textures, and point of view wanders among various levels of brightness. This metamorphosis also announces the latest exploration of Lin Hao-Bai’s journey with light, not only crossing barriers of various time-space but forges an absolute freedom of impromptu writing in the kingdom of light and shadow.

光行之處—即興、凝視與林浩白創作中的物景位移
國立台灣師範大學美術系 教授兼系主任 | 白適銘

時間,像是穿梭在分秒滴答之間的現實刻度,或是象徵過去、現代與未來 往來復去的理則循環?瞬間與永恆,能否因此被刻印或標記?在時間的不斷位 移中,生命以何種形式確認它的時間狀態?相對來說,空間,同樣需要藉由位 移的形式,體現其長度、寬度與高度,並在交錯連結的過程中承載定義、發揮 作用,產生關係。於此,時間與空間充滿可變,人在其中,亦可說是一種行 旅、邂逅、歷經或逢合,過程與結果只是一種記憶、幻影、體感或覺知,以 「物象」、「光景」......之名,成為整體與片段的辯證。
隨著時間的延長或空間的擴展,生命交織成為穿梭在不斷跨越、持續往返 的樂句、畫稿、文本,獨立而自在,混淆已知與未知、存留與遺忘,即興、隨 機卻不可取代。然而,樂句、畫稿或文本中的描寫,封印多少時間與空間的痕 跡?遺失多少「已然」的經驗、預留多少「未知」的發現?在虛構與實境的切 換轉折中,如何平衡「如在」與「若忘」的矛盾?最終成為時間刻印與空間標 記並存的紀念物,在回溯的醞釀追想中,重新返回現場、再度梭遊其間,描寫 中的「物象」、「光景」,似乎又栩栩如生、歷歷在目。
樂句、畫稿、文本中的留痕,因此都可視為這場獨旅或共遊的隨身紀念 物、紀念碑,停留在某個時間、某個空間,以某種形式語彙,讓逐漸消逝的黯 淡與永恆不滅的光華,並存共在。因為時間的經過與空間的穿越所營構的位 移,成為故事的經緯、標的,以一種既動又靜的凝視,譜寫其中的曲折與跌 宕。此時,「物象」與「光景」,既可能是紀念物般的暫存或紀念碑式的長在, 交互於創作者與物、景之間的瞬間,歷經身體感官的凝視、觸碰、行經、聆 聽、嗅聞......等統合歷程,成為反芻後的餘韻、片晌及留影。
「物象」與「光景」的緊密關係,宛若法國美學家馬克‧勒伯(Marc Le Bot)在《身體的意象》(Images du Corps, 1986)書中所述:「形與場,內與外,在 風景中僅是一體。......在可見世界中的身體、幾何狀地形,成就一個被規劃的 全體,......,讓我們看見一個由早先肢解的片斷中成型的全體,同時拆開又聯 合」,亦即世界中的任何可見元素,包含人(的身體)在內,儘管具有清晰的邊 界,所有的斷片都只是全體之中的「一個形貌」,藉由形與場的對應關係,產生 內在與外延的交互作用,既拆解又不可分割。
從 2009 年開始,林浩白的靜物創作,進入某種依循光影變化的路徑而形成 「儀式化」的階段。所謂的「儀式化」,亦即透過將包含花卉、植物或物件經由 「擺置」與「封存」的方式,建構一種具有紀念物、紀念碑物象及意義的景 致,完成其對該「事件」的記憶與敘事。這些被重置於某種看似合理的時間、 空間新秩序之中的有形物象,以共同的敘事功能及類似的記憶模式,成為再現 該「事件」的原初材料;而光線像是酵素般精煉或催化著刻印在其上的往昔時 光,連結各種斷片成為一個整體,營造宛若穿越時空障礙的精神場域。
於此,「擺置」與「封存」的相互連結,成為此間「儀式化」靜物畫的重要 手段,象徵在開放與封閉的不同時空關係中,體現靜物與場域之間兼具顯與 隱、外與內的再現結構。猶如《被記錄的事件》所見,桌面上零散擺置的幻燈 片、紙張或瓶罐,以一種事實未經揭露的物件形態,再現其「原始」狀態,經 由光影投射在白桌白牆上所呈現的各種陰影變化,像是背景音樂般的群魔亂 舞,突顯具有劇本張力般的某種「事件」情節。而空間留白所形成的場域氛 圍,更能激發觀眾對其不明情節屏息凝視的好奇,此時,靜物逐漸脫離物件自 身的止息形貌,進入各種角色扮演的能動狀態,不再安靜。
此外,象徵封存狀態的玻璃罐,或開或閉,一如幻燈片的邊框,讓尚未被 顯影的影像、紀錄呈現半隱半顯的狀態,讓記憶暫時停留在記錄--亦即尚未解 碼--的狀態之中,似語非語。這些物件,在模擬該「事件」發生現場般的情境 氛圍中,靈活扮演各種角色,作為各種過往經歷的紀錄品或紀念物,喚醒作者 或觀者開啟這段尚未被重置時空脈絡的窺探慾望。由此種儀式感所形構的「物 象」與「光景」之間的視覺邏輯,亦即在白桌白牆彷若夢境漂浮般的背景中, 透過「擺置」與「封存」的對比,突顯意象清晰、色彩鮮明的各種物件,並藉 此作為追憶或紀念過往時光的創作手法,已然奠定林浩白靜物畫的早期敘事文 法。
從生活或旅行物件到植物、花卉的主題轉換,這些精緻飽滿、單一或群體 以及象徵生命靜好的「物象」,卻以充滿奇想、幻影、即興或秩序重置的方式形 成某種「光景」,被「擺置」與「封存」起來。藉由刻意的「擺置」與象徵的 「封存」儀式,作為某「事件」的紀念物或紀念碑,像是一部具有完整劇碼、 情節、文本、角色與布景設計等細節的戲劇,「述說自己對於生活、人際關係、 生命更迭的看法」(引自作者創作自述),早已跳脫純然「寫生」的歷史語境。 不論是山茶、玫瑰、蝴蝶蘭、洋桔梗、香水百合、鬱金香、聖誕紅、風信子或 其他植物,或盆栽或瓶插,無不以典雅、莊重與井然有序的形色意象而被統 合。
花開花落,春去秋來,自然時序以其應有的規律與容貌,呈現世人眼前。 不論是含苞、盛開或凋零,對他來說,「一切是如此驚奇且無法預測,物件在畫 面中有如演員在舞台上,正在即興演出」,「生命在時間流逝的每一刻都是不同 的」(同上),每一個瞬間都有花的開落、人的往來,生命就是一部交織在這種 不斷更迭秩序中的劇本,透過凝視與位移,時間與空間產生跨度,瞬間與永 恆、個別與群體、此岸及彼端都只是其中的某種斷片而已。情緒起伏,可能來 自對某些「事件」的引發,亦可能基於對眼下「物象」與「光景」不自主的觸 動,劇本因其喜怒哀樂與悲歡離合,才能感人,生命因其跌宕起伏與不可預 測,更增興味。
在這些有如演員即興表演般的物象中,以折枝花卉最為曖昧,象徵自然的 斷片、身體的肢解,代表青春、豐盈、美好,卻稍縱即逝。拾集、靜置、沉浸 或封存於玻璃杯罐之中的舉動,象徵作者遊走於隕歿與暫留兩端中的儀式性紀 念,一如底片或紙稿。在背景上,一開始充滿戲劇性的處理,已逐漸被純化、 簡化、抽象化,或成為一片靜默的平塗,此種改變,與其說是內外光線物理投 射造成的自然效果,更多來自因應作者對花卉產生不同情感連結產生的心理投 射。或暗或明、或向光或逆光、或平視或俯照的背景空間,突顯「韶光易逝」 或青春易老的慨嘆,此時,時間與空間都同時被擠壓進入臨界狀態,持續鼓脹 並等待崩壞瞬間的來臨。
空氣中,瀰漫著由視覺、嗅覺共同統治的官能氣息,流盪在虛實互換、實 體與想像並存的超現實狀態之中,形成有待解讀與吟詠的碑銘,字字珠璣。綻 放枝梢的璀燦容顏,代表「已然」的既存現實,喧鬧得若無其事;殞落塵土的 殘葉敗蕊,象徵「未知」的即將到來,安靜得彷若隔世。這些物象,雖說是靜 物,卻不靜而動,順應光的行徑,在時間中堆積衰老的紋理,在空間中釋放頹 敗的根葉,自蘊生命輪迴的理則。其彼此,交錯在超現實的魅惑光景之中,從 斷片到全體,再從全體到斷片,聚散分合已融會於「如在」與「若忘」的輪替 循環之中,難分你我。
接近十年之間,循著光線游移的所到之處,林浩白的創作步伐,逐漸從室 內花卉轉移到室外風景,再從室外風景回返至窗邊盆栽,在不斷的歸零與重啟 之間,交換不同的能量與知識,跨越時區與洲際,形構具有生命節奏的即興式 探險。可以想見,其作為創作者的物景視線,透過凝視端點的變換,產生場域 與邊界的戲劇轉折,於此,同類或異種植物花卉的個別表情、集體姿態,故鄉 或外邦建築地景的獨特形貌、共有特徵,都像是導演對演員舉手投足都瞭若指 掌般的清晰可見,同時可以置換角色、轉換場景、修改劇本。風景,對他來 說,也是一種兼具超現實與紀念物意義的劇本。
2017 年起,城市系列作品的出現,代表他對室內光影研究之後的擴充,主 題因之變化,而連結兩端的,則是旅行。旅行,特別是國外旅行,促使他跨越 過往習以為常的視覺經驗,陌生地點使其鈍化的感受能力再次開啟,「用自己的 視線跟視角,游移在一個陌生的城市,觀察城市的面貌」(同上),在「已然」 與「未知」之間尋找平衡的可能。最初的嘗試,在《邊際》(試作)一作中可見 端倪,幾乎隱沒於室內幽微中的窗前蘭花、偌大堅硬的窗框以及窗外擾嚷麇 集、煙塵四起的城市景觀,看似合理卻異常詭異,突顯越境時交錯在吶喊與平 靜、凝視與聯想之間的內在衝突。
有趣的是,這些畫面中的物象,來自不同國家、時代及樣式的建築或街 道,並非寫生式的原景再現,而是經由移花接木式剪裁所造成的結果,都只是 這個以「邊際」為舞台中的演員,各自扮演著對話或對峙、跨越或退縮等不同 可能的角色,在陌生的台詞中各說各話,像是一部尚在排練中隨時可以調整的 劇本。同時,也可說是創作者以導演的視角及身份,進行即興書寫的結果,如 同花卉系列中的超現實光景一般,只是背景從二度空間轉為三度空間。值得注 意的是,這種空間深度的變換,代表作者自身在物與景觀視位置上 180 度的轉 動,換句話說,原本作為作者背後空間的戶外風景的「缺席」,轉而成為畫面 「在場」的主角,而原來牆上的光或影,已然無法只是花卉瓶罐的投影,而成 為具有空間穿透力、地理區位指涉,甚或帶領作者進行身心冒險的旅行指引。
從《邊際》(試作)到同系列的城市主題創作,林浩白的油彩創作開始產生 從物到景、由內到外的巨大位移行動。對《邊際》試作版的局部修正(簡稱改 作),亦即刪去花卉、更換窗框,顯示這種劇本式即興書寫形式的延續。仔細閱 讀,更加精實整飭的窗框,更均衡地三分窗戶佔據的空間,畫面下方的牆面留 白,暗示作者所在的高度、位置與距離,營造一種看似「在場」的「真實感」, 然而,對照稍早的試作即可知道,作者透過原作物像或圖像文本的反覆利用, 營造一種更能將眼前異地陌生風景合理化的「光景」,減少先前的違和與衝突, 達到某種程度的和諧與安適。
窗外最前端的圓頂教堂與其前後林立的各式建築,甚或最遠處彷若海市蜃 樓般摩天大樓的魅影,以不同組合的方式、角度與光影表現,而被統合起來。 換句話說,從試作到改作,根據作者對於結構、空間、光影、物象、色彩、溫 度、季節,甚或是個人記憶的存在與消失,進行調整與再造,就像一部戲劇或 樂曲的改編,形成一種可以被不斷改易、增刪的理想風景。而這兩件作品共同 組合不同時空經驗、環境元素累積而成的旅行記憶與城市意象,同時促使看似 如真或「寫實」的風景,成為一種具有不同表情、姿態的模擬性「光景」,遊走 於更自由的時間、空間不同軸線之間。
此外,透過窗戶觀看或凝視戶外的手法,像是旅人使用望遠鏡遙望遠處景 物般地,具有某種被空間或地點框限的隔閡,或許因為化解陌生對峙,進而尋 找間接或反客為主的對話模式,此種隔閡變得必要。亦即,在雙腳邁出行動之 前,眼睛的穿越更能有效且廣泛地搜尋陌生城市的一切,近者觀其實,遠者觀 其象。透過窗戶的眼睛漫遊,或近或遠地,彷若攝影機鏡頭般的自動對焦,有 助於這位異鄉人對相對陌生的狀態,進行安全的測試,並在沒有干擾的情況下 直視對方,使這種視覺探險顯得容易許多。
隨著位移的逐步擴大,走出戶外,以路人的正常腳程、步履重新丈量都 市,成為必要,而人行走在街道、建築之間,身體像是被巨物包覆般的渺小感 油然而生,人成為這個風景整體中的點景、斷片,就像行經的路樹、街燈、門 窗、圍籬、橋墩......一般,各自扮演著這齣戲劇的某個章節。位移不僅代表空 間,亦可反映在時間的次序之中,當夜幕來臨,仍然繼續探索陌生城市的旅 人,體驗黑暗中的不同面容,就像夜行動物般,在視覺不清的情況下,必須切 換其偵測模式,在黯黑中放大瞳孔,讓光線再次成為指引,重新定義明亮與幽 暗的層次。
不論是室內或戶外,光與影,隨著時間及季節、晨昏的移易,產生千變萬 化的表情;歷經空間及地理、區位的轉換,堆積百折千迴的皺褶。而光之旅 行,亦即光線所及/有無之處,以及其在各種物象之上的投射、返照,穿越白天 與黑夜、城市與郊區,形成一種無所不在、有影無形的巨大能量,引導著未歸 的旅人,在不需座標的時間與空間狀態中漫遊,而不致迷失自我。這些行旅中 所經歷的物件、物象,以一種人物「缺席」的狀態而被呈現,在其風景畫中, 彷彿進入一種「空城」模式,拉開自我與他人的距離,像是去除語言、人種、 文化或意識形態之後的理想狀態,與其說是一幅旅行風景,更接近遁入冥想、 主客交錯與如對異境般的感官奇遇。
不論是花卉或風景,將戶外被置於後或空城模式,並非意指他人的「缺 席」,而是將光影變化作為內外溝通的顯現。十餘年來,林浩白依循光線的前進 與陰影的映照方向,將物象與光景、形與場等二元對立的元素,藉由即興(亦即 自由演出)的方式,賦予最貼近其情感歸宿的意義。猶如「我身為作品的導演」 的自白,在綜合各種身體感官或知覺,所匯聚而成的凝視能力,將處於不同時 間、空間狀態的斷片,剪裁、縫合成一張如真畫稿、一部感人劇本或一首生命 之歌,各居其位,各展其能。然而,兩年餘的疫情封控,導致此種位移再次受 到限制,「韶光」系列亦因運而生。
不論戶外背景的有無,光影一直作為指引,在室內與室外,光影依照鏡頭 或場景的需求,轉換其強度及明度,實景或幻境的自由切換或並存共在,逆光 成為此時關注的焦點。逆光表現,顯示一種內外光線的曖昧交錯,亦即,外部 光線投入室內映照物件之後,再經由反光回射物件,所形成錯綜複雜的光影變 化,與第一階段不同,具有更細膩、多變的灰階色彩,黯在前明在後,反轉習 慣性的視覺慣性,進入光影漫遊的狀態之中。於此,物象突顯更多的表情、紋 理,人的視點亦因此游移在各種明度位階之中,而這種轉變,同時預告林浩白 光之行旅的最新動向,不僅再度跨越各種時空形式的障礙,更據此開創遊走光 影國度中即興書寫的絕對自由。