Two Ways of Seeing
In contemporary art, “seeing” has never been a passive act of looking. It is a way of understanding the world and interpreting reality. Two Ways of Seeing, presented by Bug 2 Gallery at Art Taipei 2025, seeks to reveal the tension between abstraction and figuration, and the cultural, perceptual, and intellectual differences that arise from these two modes of vision.
The six participating Dutch artists—Mari Stoel, Jim Harris, Lieven Hendriks, Pascal van der Graaf, Jan Maarten Voskuil, and Jos van Merendonk—each embody a distinct way of seeing. Some turn to figuration, depicting nature, society, or the environment with sensitivity, compressing the complexity of the real into the pictorial field. Others pursue abstraction, constructing visual languages through folds, structures, colors, and geometries, opening up non-narrative spaces of thought and emotion. These two ways of seeing are not mutually exclusive; rather, they mirror and challenge one another, echoing the dialectics that have shaped art history.
Figurative seeing carries with it a sense of story and projection. Through their brushwork, artists capture fleeting transformations in nature, the traces of human activity, or the tensions of social context, awakening recognition and resonance in the viewer. This is an outward gaze—one that renders the world visible and familiar, inviting us to connect the artwork with lived experience.
Abstract seeing, by contrast, directs the gaze inward. It transcends representation and focuses on the purity of form, the power of structure, and the depth of spirit. Folded canvases, color fields, and geometric order become carriers of energy, questions of being, and explorations of perception. The viewer, in turn, encounters not a narrative image but a field of movement, emotion, and contemplation.
Ultimately, Two Ways of Seeing creates an open and dynamic exhibition space. As viewers move from figuration into abstraction—or from abstraction back to figuration—they undergo more than a formal shift; they experience a transformation in cognition itself. Seeing is revealed not as singular but as multiple, layered, and fluid: it can anchor itself in the reality of the external world, yet also lead us into inner landscapes of thought and spirit.
This exhibition invites viewers to pause, to move between these two modes of vision, and perhaps to discover within themselves a “third way of seeing”—a mode that transcends surface distinctions and embraces both the external and the internal. It is here that the enduring power of art lies: to open new ways of perceiving, to provoke reflection, and to reveal connections that shape how we see and understand the world.
