Wang Yu-Song

王煜松 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I began growing plants. Wanting to better understand how they lived and developed, I became interested in the microorganisms inhabiting the soil. This curiosity led me to ask a simple question: what do these invisible forms of life actually look like? Using a microscope, I began observing soil microorganisms and recording them through drawing.

Microbial Studies is not intended as a scientific investigation, but rather as an exploration of drawing from observation as a way of understanding the world. Traditionally, sketching is directed toward landscapes, architecture, plants, or the human figure. In this work, however, the subject shifts toward a realm that is equally real but inaccessible to the naked eye. The microscope changes not only the scale of perception, but also the very subject of observation, allowing an otherwise invisible world to become the starting point of artistic practice.

As I observed these microscopic forms, I found myself reconsidering the meaning of abstraction. To me, the organisms seen through the microscope are not abstract at all—they are tangible forms of life that exist and can be directly observed. Yet for viewers unfamiliar with this microscopic world, the resulting images often resemble abstract paintings. The work therefore raises a question: is abstraction truly detached from reality, or is it simply reality that has not yet been recognized? The boundary between abstraction and representation does not lie within the image itself, but within the viewer's experience and knowledge.

Alongside the paintings, the project includes a living installation. Soil containing microorganisms is cultivated inside a laboratory flask using enzyme-assisted fermentation. The flask is connected by a glass tube to a balloon, which gradually inflates as gases produced by microbial activity accumulate over time. Rather than presenting the microorganisms themselves, the installation reveals traces of their existence. Through an ongoing process of fermentation, an otherwise invisible biological activity is transformed into a physical phenomenon that can be directly perceived.

Throughout the project, I also became interested in the microscope itself as a medium of perception. We often assume that vision through our own eyes is immediate and objective, yet human sight is already mediated through the lens of the eye. In this sense, the microscope does not create another world; it simply introduces another layer of vision, extending our perception toward a different scale of reality. This idea of looking through layers of transparent lenses is reflected in the paintings themselves. Transparent washes, overlapping forms, and permeable layers evoke the experience of seeing through multiple optical surfaces. Transparency is therefore not merely a visual language, but a metaphor for perception itself—a reminder that every act of seeing is mediated.

Ultimately, Microbial Studies is not a work about microorganisms. It is a work about perception. As the tools through which we observe the world change, so too does the world that becomes visible to us. Drawing from observation is therefore not simply a means of depicting what we see, but a continual process of expanding the ways in which we come to understand reality.