The Old Man and the Sea  老人與海

2021 / Kaohsiung Award，Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts，Kaohsiung，Taiwan。高雄市立美術館  

​

On soaked watercolor paper, the entire text of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is transcribed by hand using a black gel pen. The act is performed kneeling on the floor throughout—mirroring the struggle between the old man and the marlin. Through repetitive writing, the mind enters a blank state, immersing itself in the narrative’s atmosphere.

The ink spreads across the saturated surface, allowing lines and smudges to evoke the quiet tension of a man alone at sea, fighting not only nature, but for belief itself. The layered marks suggest a kind of intimate darkness—a solitary resistance beneath moonless waves.

Ballpoint transcription is a familiar act: school notes, arithmetic, memorization. Beyond learning, there’s a belief in accumulation. In East Asian thought, phrases like “grain by grain, a tower rises,” or “in books lie gold and beauty,” reflect a cultural faith in steady effort. Just as the old man wrestles the marlin, we, too, wrestle with belief. And in this repetition, we affirm the value of our struggle.

​

在浸濕的水彩紙上用黑色中性筆抄寫整本厄尼斯特．海明威（Ernest Hemingway）的《老人與海》《The Old Man and the Sea》。抄寫時全程跪臥地面，與書中老人和馬林魚搏鬥的場景相似，透過抄寫動作讓意識空白，進入文句間的場景。飽含水分的紙張使得原子筆的墨水暈開，透過線條堆疊、暈染，製造畫面中深夜大海孤獨一人為信念奮鬥的幽微感。

    

我們對原子筆抄寫的行為並不陌生。在學校時寫下的筆記、算數、默寫等，除了學習之外，我們更相信這是一種「累進」。如「積沙成塔」、「書中自有黃金屋，書中自有顏如玉」等觀念，就是受到儒家思想的東方所相信的價值；這就與《老人與海》中老人與巨大的馬林魚搏鬥一樣，其實我們搏鬥的是信念，而這樣的行為是對自我價值的體現。