[Press Release]
Collectors Preview November 9 Thurs. 12-7 p.m.
Public Day November 10 Fri. 12-7 p.m.
Public Day November 11 Sat. 10 am – 7 p.m.
Public Day November 12 Sun. 1:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Venue: West Bund Art Center, 2555 Longteng Avenue, Xuhui District, Shanghai
Booth: B9
Participating artists: Lin Ju, Chia-en Jao, Joyce Ho, Chen Ching-Yuan
Founded in Taipei in 2009, TKG+ thrives on its mission to promote and support the most interesting and significant contemporary art from the region. The gallery works with emerging artists and privileges experimentation in art across different mediums, from video and photography to installation and new media. As its name suggests, TKG+ believes in the exponential growth and possibility of art in the 21st century.
From Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to contemporary sci-fi narratives, the debate on reality has been an age-old dialectic. Ambiguities have arisen concerning what reality is. When symbols and consciousness dictate how reality is perceived, “truth” becomes enveloped in fog. We need to believe what we see is a response to our experience, as real as our own existence. Similarly, an artist’s creation is no longer a replica of something else as in the classical sense, but stands alone as a narrative that derives from history, politics, everyday life, even illusions. When an intersubjective relationship is formed between the artwork and the artist, a dialogue between the viewer and the artist is initiated with that first look cast upon the work. For the 2017 edition of West Bund Art & Design, TKG+ is pleased to present four artists, each a different facet of Taiwanese contemporary art: Lin Ju (b. 1959), Chia-en Jao (b. 1976), Joyce Ho (b. 1983), and Chen Ching-Yuan (b. 1984). Working across diverse mediums from painting, video, to installation, these four artists engage themselves in a dialectic of reality that sheds light on human perception.
Lin Ju is known for the surrealist imagery in his painting. A state of chaos and illusion undulates under his paintbrush, details lurking in the gloomy palette. His work is a visceral response to traditional Chinese landscape painting through which he explores his own interiority, at the same time testing the boundary of perception.
Pivoting around identity, marginality, aesthetics, and political systems, Chia-en Jao’s work criticizes and responds to the fossilized system, or the values and ideologies which, shaped by social symbols, dominate history, society, the collective, and the individual. Through his watercolor works on paper, the artist contests history, examines how history is being perused or traded, while weighing aesthetics against morality.
Joyce Ho’s practice stretches across such mediums as painting, installation, and video. Adopting a microscopic perspective, the artist dissects the mundane, thereby deconstructing sociocultural symbols and reconstructing a personal route through which the individual responds to the world, as she examines the simmering tensions among interpersonal relationships that are at once intimate and aloof.
Cocooned in a romanticist ambience, Chen Ching-Yuan’s work is built on a sense of déjà vu that enshrouds mystifyingly surrealist narratives that appear at first glance pregnant with fixed and careful connotations. An overflow of subtle and fragmented symbols pervades his painting, where sensory experiences are reconstructed with plausible, fleeting narrative clues.
Together Lin Ju, Chia-en Jao, Joyce Ho, and Chen Ching-Yuan offer dioramic views on history, consciousness, and the everyday. With their diverse body of work, TKG+ invites the viewer to explore mercurial boundaries of reality and the way man perceives the world.
陈敬元，《The Eyes of Peacock》，油彩．画布，40 x 31.5 cm
Chen Ching-Yuan, “The Eyes of Peacock”, Oil on canvas , 40 x 31.5 cm , 2017
陈敬元，《防卫机制》，素描，13 x 14.8 cm，2016
Chen Ching-Yuan, “Defense Mechanisms”, Charcoal on paper, 13 x 14.8 cm, 2016
何采柔，《梦见我》，压克力颜料．玻璃纤维．灯箱．木座，165x48x48xcm ，2017
Joyce Ho, “Dream about me”, Acrylic, fiber glass, light box, woods, 165x48x48xcm, 2017
何采柔，《九月》，油画于布面精装书本．红色漆线，依场域而定，2015
Joyce Ho, “A September”, Oil on book cover, red painted line, Dimensions variable, 2015
林巨，《01山水道-2017》，水墨．宣纸，45 x 35 cm，2017
Lin Ju, “Path to Shanshui-2017 01”, Ink on rice paper, 45 x 35 cm, 2017
林巨，《时代力量 拾参-仙人道 物词》，水墨．宣纸，38 x 36 cm，2016
Lin Ju, “The Tides of Time No. 13 – Path to Immortality, Ode to Objects”, Ink on rice paper, 38 x 36 cm，2016
饶加恩，《2016 年重建高士神社鸟居、高砂义勇军佩刀、凉山特勤队防弹面罩、蓪草、阿里山伐木大剖锯、采樟脑刨刀、1910 英日博览会参展的日本官员》，水彩纸本，56.5x76cm，2017
