Plaster is a very interesting material. When it is mixed with water, it becomes a state of liquid. When you hold it in your hands you are actually holding a lump of liquid, and you are going to shape it. There is another very important feature of plaster that is it gets solid rapidly. These two most important characteristics are the reasons why I have been using plaster for all this time.

So when you're holding a lump of liquid plaster. You are actually facing a problem that in a very short time, you need to give it a shape. Through this process your thoughts, your actions, the time, as well as the gravity. All these factors are intertwined together to form the final result.

So you actually have no way to control the final shape, it is completely determined by two factors: the first are the characteristics and natural features of the plaster and the second is the interacting process between me and the material and these two factors gradually bring the final result into reality.

In the whole process from liquid to solid what I can feel is the time, which through...the sense of touch is conveyed into my feelings. What you can feel is an existing reality and how this reality is accomplished. No matter how many ideas you have, you can't change the final result or to remake it since the plaster dries very quickly.

What you can do is to shape it, and convey your thoughts and potentialities as much as possible while it is still liquid. By experiencing the creation process many times. It will let you understand in a more specific way: What does time means for us and how it gets involved in our entire actions and thoughts.

And this is possible only by means of touch. The sense of touch that allows you feel step by step the changes from liquid to solid. At the beginning of this process, you experience the great potentialities and uncontrollabilities of plaster and the uncontrollability. But in the end what you feel is that the result is predestinate. Because when you put down the first lump of plaster you just have the foundation for the next lumps one on the top of another. Finally it becomes a solid, an accomplished existence.

It's time which makes this accomplished existence.

Ou Ming

31.05.2017