Po-Shin Chao reflects on her Hatching Residency

As an artist, for my residency my project focussed heavily on exploring and experimenting with ways I could reflect and display my own identity and internal struggles through the world of fish and marine life. An aspect I wanted to include was my cultural heritage; with the use of fish surrounding Taiwan included in my artwork, art styles and choosing fish that symbolized particular meanings. Many of the fish I wanted to paint were heavily inspired by hierarchies and societal roles in everyday life. I worked primarily in paints and inks related to traditional artworks such as gouache and calligraphy ink and spent the full ten days at the nest, popping in and out over the course of two months.

Coming into this project and residency my experience as an artist, especially as a freelancer, was daunting in some ways. This was my first time being paid by someone else outside my friends and family for my art. I have struggled with imposter syndrome but have always wanted to pursue my art further as a painter therefore being accepted as a resident already really boosted my confidence. 

My own expectations joining the nest were very broad, I have yet to find myself as an artist and build on my own image before knowing what Talking Birds could provide for me. Through the residency, I wanted to focus on my art, see what I could improve or experiment with, and challenge my own knowledge of my identity. For this, I spent quite a lot of time to myself researching and reflecting on the different subjects, materials, and art practices that I felt fit with my concept and idea. 

Although I had originally planned to take off in my career as a freelancer, I came to the realisation rather quickly how much harder and longer this would take and wouldn’t be made overnight or just through the residency alone.

On the first couple days, I spent my time researching a lot into materials, art practices and the composition. While I was researching into what goes into making more traditional Chinese art, I began to get overwhelmed and lost with the amount of information I was taking in. The lack of specific targets, guidelines or need for a final project made this incredibly difficult to narrow down what I wanted to actually do or get sidetracked. This is when I started turning back to my original proposal I used when applying for a residency at the nest. With more meaning, I began research on idioms related to what societal observations I was most drawn to and felt most authentic to me so that I could narrow down where I was going with this. I wrote out the who, what, when, where, why and how’s and I printed plenty of images that stuck with me that I used as inspiration or for studying which gave me motivation for the rest of my time at the Nest. 

I stuck with materials that I was more comfortable using and experimented with techniques. Materials I used included gouache, traditional ink, and water-based oil paints on watercolour paper, canvas, and canvas board. I tried to see if gouache and inks would suit traditional Chinese rice paper and found this to be rather tricky when it came to layering as the paper can be rather fragile. My biggest surprise and excitement came to using the water-based oils as this was my first time using them, they were just like regular oil paints but in fact felt much cleaner to use and apply. 

Speaking to other residents and staff at the nest gave me room to step away from my own thoughts and learn more about the arts community. It was interesting to hear what other residents do and usually get out of doing residencies. Chatting with some of the staff was a nice comfort in seeing the same faces and catching up when I did. The way the team cared for the environment and sharing the communal space felt very homely by the end. I definitely lucked out when it came to the weather; it was extremely pleasant, and the location of my studio meant I had plenty of time to admire the view or take a short stroll down the canals with everything in bloom. 

My project may not have given me a drastic insight into my cultural identity as I was hoping for, but I do plan to continue that journey throughout my entire life. Instead, I did end up learning a lot more about the marine life surrounding my little island of Taiwan. It was fun to reuse old materials such as the inks which I hadn’t touched in over a decade.

One thing that I found to surprise myself during my time, was my ability to focus and think clearly throughout my project. Looking back, there were days when I felt I couldn’t paint much and many days that I had managed to paint several small paintings. I became very proud with myself at how capable I am with my painting skills as someone who often gets into a rut and spends months between painting sessions.

The residency meant I had all that time to myself to focus in and out of so whether I was able to get more than one painting done in a day or not, the space let me breathe and take it at my own pace. Something I have always struggled with was getting started and keeping to a task. These have always been challenges for me especially with ADHD. However, given that much time to focus on the project meant after a while of procrastinating or disassociating, having the materials in front of me and space dedicated to my time being there, I was forced into the productive and creative mindset- with the help of maybe a cup of tea or coffee and an hour in the morning to wake up. 

This was interesting to me as I went through many thoughts and feelings because of this. Just like other residents have mentioned before, I felt at times that I should be spending my time better here. I wanted to initially take advantage of every moment the residency had to offer. Many days were slow and quiet, and my mind would often go through the stages of wanting to do something different, bigger or be more sociable. I would try to paint faster, paint more smaller collections and procrastinate on experimenting with my larger canvases. One of the beauties of the residency I suppose is that time to reflect and realign ideas and self. 

With the days I had taken apart in between and as my collection of paintings grew, I could look back at how well I could do if I was kinder to myself and without as much pressure from myself or by others. There would be days where I would binge watch countless podcasts, sometimes just for a break and other times as a comfort when painting. While it may seem silly or counterproductive from the outside, I very much realised how important it was for me to work well and gave myself some routine.

Ten days across two months and a room change later (due to some flooding), my residency was over. The overall experience was a positive one, I had plenty I took away from it and glad I pushed myself. I want to thank everyone at Talking Birds, I feel I’ve moved one step closer towards where I want to be and understanding who I am more as a creative. I can’t wait to see what they do further to support, improve and grow the arts community in Coventry.