An Inscription to my work-

一段献与我作品的铭文——

Here lies a fracture. May it be stepped over. May it be sealed. May it not be looked into– something will fall.

I operate through telling stories.

无法抵抗，无法拥抱，无法消解。

这里有裂缝。可以越过，可以填满，不能去看，会坠落。

我用讲故事容纳虚无。

The gap is not translated.

中文版本的创作者自述即将上线！>>>>>>

The Chinese version of Artist statement will be here soon! >>>>>>

Artist Statement

My relationship to storytelling emerges from the need for containment. In this constraint system, sequence and meaning are produced through the effect of progressive, controlled chaos. I describe myself to remain stable; the system describes itself for the same reason.

I have lived in China and the U.S. for over half of my life each. The quantum of boundaries I have approached not only names the radical leap in scale but also suggests the smallest dispersions. These boundaries loudly announce issues such as the culture, language, behavior…It oftentimes leads one to overlook that cultural distance tends to obscure the private conditions of becoming. I used to experiment with many methods to define an identity of mine. I snap, draw, paint and write. Yet the gap stays unyielding, untouching, unending. I stopped making what’s visible more visible. At last, the narrative that grasps me is no longer an interest in the gap itself but in the conditions that allow a structure to contain it.

The gap, or the fracture, behaves as a parameter of my system– adjustable, measurable, capable of widening or contracting without dissolving the whole. I employ a number of figures: domestic birds, plantations, humans. They repeat to make themselves present as sustained progression, showing up in the dreamscapes of my paintings and approaching the limit of my construction. These figures may become the gap, carrying their own threshold of collapsing. All of which are devoted to an internal process, and the gap is the structure completing its own boundary. I am just sitting around in the shades of the dawn, checking on what I do, see, and think. My storytelling process is formed within– a mechanism, a vessel which holds everything in place and constrains events into a sequence to be kept from dispersing. Overall, I define what the system is able to hold, rather than what it lacks or urgently needs.

MIAO Keyan, 2026