Addendum: On Perception, Essence, and Difference
The example “the apple is on the table” illustrates that the very concept of “apple” is something we have assigned; it is a construction added by human consciousness. Therefore, what we perceive as an apple is not a form of being-in-itself — not a pure, self-contained existence. Only when we strip away all layers of human subjectivity and perception can we approach what Sartre calls the truly in-itself being.
In relation to Sartre’s notion of being-in-itself (être-en-soi), I began reflecting on how perception itself is never neutral. Sartre illustrates this through a simple phrase — “the apple is on the table.” The “apple” we see is not a pure, objective entity; rather, “apple” is a concept layered with human consciousness, language, and recognition. What lies beyond this naming — the thing stripped of all human perception — is what he calls “being-in-itself,” something we can never fully reach.
Magritte, René. The Son of Man. 1964, oil on canvas, private collection.
This idea resonates deeply with my own lived experience. I was born in Guangzhou, a coastal city in southern China where maritime trade defines both geography and memory. Since childhood, I carried the image of “the sea as blue” — an inherited ideal transmitted by culture and media. Yet, when I first visited the Guangdong shoreline, the sea appeared grey-green, almost opaque. Later, on a family trip beyond the industrial port, I encountered for the first time a luminous turquoise sea — the “blue” I had imagined.
Photographed in Huizhou, Guangdong, China
Through this moment, I realized that the sea’s color shifts with its environment: ports, factories, trade routes — all leave material and cultural sediments that alter perception. The sea is not essentially blue; it can be grey, brown, green, or gold, and yet remain the sea. To demand that the sea be purely blue is to deny the complexity of its being — much like how society imposes fixed ideals on gender, beauty, or purity.
As Beauvoir reminds us, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Essentialist thinking denies the multiplicity of becoming, just as the idea of a “pure” sea denies the coexistence of difference.Irigaray extends this argument through touch: difference is not opposition but relation — the very space where subjectivity emerges.
Within this project, I return to this logic of touch and perception — the encounter between self and material — as a way to explore how power and environment co-constitute the subject. Like the sea, my work resists fixity; it moves between clarity and opacity, between the known and the felt. To be “grey-green” rather than “blue” is not to fail, but to exist truthfully within a shifting world.
For Sartre, consciousness is nothingness — not in the sense of absence, but as a form of openness and negation. It precedes reflection; it is a pre-reflective awareness, an intentional movement that reaches toward the world. This consciousness, absolutely free, does not possess a fixed essence or content. Instead, it actively seeks what Sartre calls being-in-itself — the external things that exist independently — and in encountering them, consciousness assigns meaning and value.
Studio Process — Quick Gesture Painting Photographed and documented by the artist during daily studio practice.
Thus, consciousness and things are ontologically different. The object exists as fullness, while consciousness exists as lack, as a void that makes distance and interpretation possible. Without consciousness, things simply are — mute, inert; but through consciousness, they are illuminated, named, and made meaningful.
In my own painting practice, this nothingness becomes a space of affirmation. When my skin directly touches pigment and canvas, I am not merely depicting objects but encountering them. The gesture does not represent; it constitutes meaning through the act itself. The painting becomes a site where consciousness — as freedom and negation — interacts with material reality. In this process, I refuse pre-given definitions of self, gender, or beauty; instead, I generate my own meanings through embodied making.
To paint, then, is to act out Sartre’s notion of freedom: a self that defines itself not through essence, but through continual becoming — a movement from nothingness toward creation.
Key differences between Sutter and Irigaray (connected vs. non-connected)
Amy Sillman wrote the concept and the table.
For me, each item was written in two columns:
"Great / Not so great," limiting the use of technical terms and only describing how I would approach the composition
(e.g., Great = "Let the shadows determine the position of the figures";
Not so great = "I am still silently accepting the central composition").
This transforms the "concept" into a flashlight in my hand, directly returning to the viewing and design within the image.
Johns's Flashlight. Sikkema Jenkins' press release clearly explains the "reflexive viewing" within the "light bulb,"
and also explains why a monistic zine is used to "let the painting speak and puncture the sense of equality."
1: From "Light Bulb" to "Flashlight"—From the "Concept of Light" to the Distribution of Power of "Light." The press release for this exhibition stated: The exhibition "begins with a sketch of a light bulb, the light bulb transforms into a flashlight, and the flashlight becomes a reflexive medium."
A flashlight, on the other hand, is a directional light that can be held by the subject. Who holds the light and where it is shone determines what is seen and who sees it.
2: Collage's "Secondary Viewing"—Using classic images as source material and then dividing them into four or five visibility levels, images of light bulbs/light (such as Oldenburg), cut and rearranged, are like both a visual archive and a disassembly and reassembly of an existing "viewing system":
Turning "classics" into source material, then having the author re-determine the order and page weight, and redistributing visibility, with accompanying text (paperweight's comments).
Also, in the "zine," there are many light bulbs found from the works of Pikachu, Monston, Oldenburg, etc. ("This is similar to Willman's use of public life in the exhibition materials, without mockery")
In OG #3 (Zine),
Amy Sillman juxtaposes the conceptual history of the “light bulb” — a motif of invention, illumination, and thought — with the modernist narrative of “the death of painting” and the rise of conceptual art. The zine includes a visual “train of thought,” a timeline that parallels the technological history of the light bulb with shifts in art discourse, effectively dismantling the binary of “concept versus painting.” Through the layered “stacking” of images — overlapping diagrams, sketches, and textual fragments — Sillman constructs a dialogue between material imagery and the intellectual history of art, bridging what is often separated as matter and idea.
If we were to make an artist's zine, Aug 25, 2025
Acknowledgment and acceptance. I want to pursue a "peaceful balance"? Could it really be a trap? Regarding "peace"
"The Light of Ideas": It's both a humorous anti-authoritarian stance and Sillman's consistent strategy of "letting painting and thought happen on the same plane."
(In the exhibition press release, she frankly stated that painting is "perforatedly interconnected" with discourses such as philosophy/feminism and performativity).
• Ideas are no longer distant light bulbs, but light that can be held in one's hand and shone on different people.
Post a zine!
"First, make an A4 'My Question List' (maximum 10 items, copied from the zine fold-out's double-column structure Great/Not so Great). No blank spaces, only write the painting, the surface action (e.g., 'Great: Let the shadows determine the figure's position; Not so Great: I still tacitly accept the centralization of opinion')."
Then, let each brushstroke not become an "answer" to a question. (The fold-out and "Train of Thought" are key evidence for the discussion of zine).
"In this painting, who is holding the flashlight? Whom do I make visible, and who is not fully visible?"
1. How do you use "material movement" to handle identity and emotion?
I use leather live-streaming Touch Paint (oil pastels)on the canvas, to understand the existence of "I" (the present emotion).
2. How do you balance the label of "sexuality/femininity" with this abstract painting?
"I" am a woman, and I acknowledge and accept my own body. Female art often expresses "softness" and "delicacy" on the canvas. I was initially inspired by Neo-Expressionism, using large brushes, direct painting, and unmixed paint (oil painting's "spreading, layering"). Now, I want "acceptance"—accepting the expected flow of the mind, the painting. "Your composition is uncertain." I treat my creative process as an "automatic writing."
3. How has your experience with quotient/translation changed your expression of the form of "home/body"? Currently, I don't have a formalized expression for this aspect.
This experience has significantly changed my inner self—the incompatibility of my internal organs has made me more accustomed to myself.
This experience has significantly changed my inner self—
→solitude, detachment from my emotions.
→body: I...only my physical body truly exists in the world.
Self-talk.
Reference:
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Sillman, Amy. Back of a Horse Costume x 2. 2015–16. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 190.5 × 167.6 cm. (Work cited via gallery listing and reviews.)
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—. The Vulnerable Subject: Feminist Phenomenology and Installation Practice. PhD dissertation, University of Dundee, 2020.