The Soul Under the Skin – A Dialogue Between Xiang Jing and Quincy Ngan

March 1995. Since then, a theme has woven together all my works of art. In the past, I mentioned that I was interested in humans. I was interested in human nature. But I found that human nature is a very big concept — a big topic. It is not that easy to exhaust this topic and I could not express what I wanted to say simply by being interested in human nature. Then I found a phrase called “interiority.”  This may be a clue to understand my sculptures. Living in this world, an artist has to confront the reality that “we are alive” — we are living in this world, right? So, how can we demonstrate to both ourselves and other people that we exist and are alive? Every day, we eat, we drink, we pee, we poo, and we even see each other face to face. All of these are just optical visions — something superficial. Through these media — these activities and optical visions can be called media — we can perceive what is reality. True interiority exists when we think. When we think, we have interiority.

QN: I read your books. Interiority refers to integrity, benevolence, and beauty, right?
XJ: Hah! Those are very big terms. You can understand interiority this way. Last year, I had a solo exhibition in the Taipei MOCA, using the entire building. At that time, the museum gave me two floors. The exhibition venue is quite big. So, I showed my “Figure”, “Animal", and "Acrobat" series. Then I had a discussion with Daniel, a doctoral student from Stanford University, and Zhu Zhu, who has been writing about my works. We had a discussion on what my art is about. Later on, when I sorted out the discussion, I gave it a title called, “The Construction of Internality.” My works can be summarized by this phrase. It means someone affirming his or her existence and demonstrating the significance of being alive as his or her lifework. I believe I am always facing this issue. There are always some issues and problems in each stage of our lives. Similarly, I use different series of works to explore my issues and problems. But the idea of existence, such a big idea, is my lifework.

QN: So, what kinds of works are you making now?
XJ: Ah! I am really afraid of this question. Making sculpture takes a lot of time. In the past, it took me