A Painter of the Empire” is never a historical referent. On the contrary, the term pertains directly to every contemporary artist; it coexists with history.
— Su Meng-Hung
A Painter of the Empire, Su Meng-Hung’s first solo exhibition since 2012, centers on identity issues for the contemporary artist, where Su interweaves three series “Material Paradise”(2002), “Grandeur．Void．Cloud．Lark” (2013–2015), and “A Painter of the Empire” (2015) into a narrative of painting and installation on artists’ place in a globalized art world, and ways to rise above their circumstances.
Recognized by the Taipei Arts Awards in 2002, and the seed for Su’s idea of “A Painter of the Empire,” the “Material Paradise” installation series at first glance, appears to parody and defy classical aesthetics through the marriage of the 17th-century Western painting replicas and mediocre ready-made merchandise. A closer look at the oil paintings of blooming flowers untouched by the change of seasons in the house of Dutch merchants from the Age of Discovery, juxtaposed with artificial plastic flowers of the 21st century, reveals an eternal yet fleeting question: how standards for taste and appreciation, and rules for art and mechanism, are perpetually intertwined with the destiny of artists in different generations riding the tides of history.
