Taipei Dangdai 2023: Galleries

Tina Keng Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in the 2023 edition of Taipei Dangdai. Bringing together Zhang Hongtu, Su Xiaobai, Yang Mao-Lin, Ava Hsueh, Chiang Yomei, Yuan Hui-Li, and Sopheap Pich, this presentation evokes a potent ambience of Asian heritage. Their diverse practices and works shed light on the changing relationship between material, composition, and color, while accentuating the interconnections between humanity and nature through the lens of artistic creation.

In the works of Zhang Hongtu (b. 1943) and Su Xiaobai (b. 1949), color guides the rhythm and elicits sensations. Imbued with profound emotion, each work is rendered in interweaving brushstrokes that transport the viewer to the moment of painting. Yang Mao-Lin (b. 1953), who recently participated in The Wild Eighties: Dawn of a Transdisciplinary Taiwan at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, continues his love for motherland by creating paintings on cypress that depict native plant and animal species of Taiwan. The aroma of the cypress educes a sensory connection with nature, affection for the homeland awakened. Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich (b. 1971), who works with bamboo and rattan, combines industrial materials, such as aluminum and stainless steel, with plant fibers and burlap to create abstract, organic structures that contemplate the relationship between natural landscape and human society.

Besides the interrelationship between humanity and nature, time is also a recurring theme that many artists seek to explore. Ava Hsueh (b. 1956), Chiang Yomei (b. 1961), and Yuan Hui-Li (b. 1963), each studies the nature of time in their respective practices, where pigments and ink shades intertwine to portray what time leaves behind. Their works help the viewer navigate their thoughts and approaches with which they break away from tradition, evolving beyond their Asian roots and legacy in their pursuit of balance between complexity and simplicity.

With the presentation of these seven artists, Tina Keng Gallery aims to highlight the dynamic between material, color, artwork, and space in each distinctive artistic language.

About the Artists

Zhang Hongtu (b. 1943)

Born in 1943 in Gansu, China, Zhang Hongtu lives and works in New York. He entered the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in Beijing in 1964, and went to the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, to study wall paintings in 1980, which left a lasting influence on his art practice. He moved to New York in 1982, and received the painting prize from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1991.

Zhang is versatile in his exploration of the stylistic possibility, convergence and tension between the East and the West. In recent years, his practice pivots around the relationship between nature and the human condition. His oil painting series “Bison” captures the unique history and journey of migration that characterizes the lifestyle of the bison, a native species of North America. Rendered in traditional shanshui techniques, the artist captures the ongoing battle between civilization and nature in the wake of humanity’s expansion.

He has exhibited internationally, including Zhang Hongtu: If Bison Can Dream, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2021); Frieze New York, New York, U.S. (2021 and 2019); Culture Mixmaster Zhang Hongtu, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, U.S. (2018); Zhang Hongtu: Van Gogh/Bodhidharma, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2018); Zhang Hongtu: Van Gogh/Bodhidharma, Charles E. Shain Library, Connecticut College, U.S. (2018); Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, U.S. (2017); Zhang Hongtu, Queens Museum, New York, U.S. (2015); Picasso in Contemporary Art, The Hall for Contemporary Art, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2015); China: Through the Looking Glass, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, U.S. (2015); A Brief History of Humankind, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel (2015); Post-Picasso: Contemporary Reactions, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain (2014). Zhang’s work is housed in renowned institutions and private collections, such as the National Museum of Art, Beijing, China; Guangzhou Art Museum, Guangzhou, China; Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY, U.S.; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ, U.S.; and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

Su Xiaobai (b. 1949)

Born in in Wuhan, China, Su Xiaobai currently lives and works in Düsseldorf. His effort to conjure abstraction through Chinese lacquer epitomizes a cross-cultural dialogue. Experienced as a mirror of time, the administration of texture and materiality in Su’s painting educes a sculpturesque serenity in a fortuitous resonance with the wabi-sabi philosophy — namely a worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. His employment of lacquer infuses a contemporaneity into a traditional medium rich with history, transmitting a subtle visual warmth in a painterly practice characterized by light and shadow. The artist paints layers of vibrantly colored lacquer in a purely structural and balanced composition. The seemingly arbitrary, yet meticulously deliberate handling of visual forms reveals the artist’s pursuit of aesthetic depth.

Su has exhibited internationally, including Art Basel Hong Kong (2023); Frieze New York (2022); Frieze London (2021); Beneath a descending moon, breathing: The Paintings of Su Xiaobai, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); And there’s nothing I can do, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, Japan (2015), Art Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (2018); The Armory Show, Piers 92 & 94, New York, U.S.A. (2018); Infinite Blue, Brooklyn Museum, New York, U.S.A. (2018); The World is Yours, as Well as Ours, White Cube Mason’s Yard, London, U.K. (2016); Grand Immensity－The Art of Xiaobai Su, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2013); The Dynasty of Colours, Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany (2009); Kao Gong Ji — Xiaobai Su Solo Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2008); and Intangible Greats, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2007).

Yang Mao-Lin (b. 1953)

Yang Mao-Lin graduated from the fine art department of Chinese Culture University in 1979. He was the first director and a founding member of the Taipei Painting School in 1985. He received the 1^st Hsiungshin Prize for Fine Arts in 1991 and the Contemporary Painting Prix of Li Chun Shen Foundation, both in 1999.

He works across diverse mediums from painting, computer animation, installation, to sculpture. Through the juxtaposition of multiple historical space-times, the artist explores Taiwan’s unique cultural phenomenon that derives from colonial hybridization. In an open-minded, humorous, and insightful way, he reflects upon Taiwan’s cultural identity that goes readily unnoticed. “The Lasting Spring” series inquires deeply into the Taiwanese consciousness, in which art, politics, history, and culture intersect to establish a pluralistic Taiwanese identity.

Since his first-ever solo exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1987, the artist has exhibited extensively, including Mementos (Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2022); Wanderers of the Abyssal Darkness II — Somber Seas (Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2019); Hybrid and Metamorphosis: Yang Mao-Lin’s Mythology (Changhua County Art Museum, Changhua, Taiwan, 2018); Made in Taiwan: A Retrospective of Yang Mao-Lin (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2016); Temple of Sublime Beauty — Made in Taiwan (Venice Biennale, Collateral Event, Italy, 2009), as well as numerous group exhibitions in Japan, Korea, Hungary, France, and the U.S.

Ava Hsueh (b. 1956)

Born in Taichung, Taiwan, Ava Hsueh now lives and works in Taichung. She has long used abstract language as her means of expression. In dexterous biomorphic and geometric abstractions, she creates a hybrid reality that corresponds to epochal shifts in contemporary abstract art. The artist’s dynamic brushwork imparts to her canvases an Eastern allure. The black contours not only exemplify the captivating quality of calligraphy, but also form a sort of natural landscape. What lies behind the dimension of imagery are the visible and invisible depths of temporal and spatial fields, achieved through her interweaving of lines and planes that cradle the pigments’ luster and warmth. Through her layered compositions, the charm of East and West blends with gradual expansion of aesthetics and consciousness. Hsueh continues to search for a way to present today’s reality through abstract language, while exploring the various possibilities of contemporary abstract art.

Hsueh has exhibited internationally, including Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu, China (2021); Taipei Dangdai, Taipei, Taiwan (2020); Art Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China (2020); Art 021, Shanghai, China (2019); The New Vision of Printmaking, Triangle Space in Chelsea College of Arts of University of the Arts London, London, U.K.; Faculty of Fine Arts, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain (2018); Art Made in Taiwan: An Exhibition From the Taiwan Academy of Fine Arts (TAFA) in Korea, National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea, Seoul, South Korea (2016); Yes ! Taiwan — 2014 Taiwan Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2014); Form of Formless: Taiwan Abstract Arts, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangdong, China (2013).

Chiang Yomei (b. 1961)

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Chiang Yomei now lives and works in London. Of Chinese, Russian, and German descent, she was deeply influenced by diverse Chinese and Western cultures from a young age. Departing for the United States for further studies in the late 1970s, she subsequently settled in London. Traversing multiple media including oils, Chinese ink, and collage, her work reveals the philosophical spectrum that radiates from her inimitable artistic vocabulary. The artist conveys her contemplation of connections between various religions, rites, fables, and philosophies through paintings that translate bodily rituals into canvases full of poetic oils and accordion albums filled with ink traces. Each work — an abstract narrative that unifies form and emptiness — depicts a state of existence that embodies both birth and demise with neither beginning nor end.

Chiang has exhibited internationally, including Art Basel Hong Kong (2022); Without Beginning or End, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2022); Frieze London (2021); Doors of Perception, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2018); Chiang Yomei: Other Realms, Sotheby’s Hong Kong Gallery, Hong Kong (2016); and The Hidden Heart, Gallery Elena Shchukina, London, U.K. (2015). Her works are housed in private and public collections across Europe and Asia.

Yuan Hui-Li (b. 1963)

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Yuan Hui-Li now lives and works in New Taipei City. Despite solid training in classical Chinese painting and calligraphy, her artistic practice responds to her environment and contemporary times by going beyond traditional brush and ink. Her research and practice go hand in hand, while ancient and modern mediums are incorporated into her work. Her ink painting transcends the visual realm, allowing the olfactory, auditory, and tactile perception to coalesce into a profound understanding of the spiritual. The “Sauntering” series evokes the artist’s attention to her bucolic surroundings as she revels in the beauty of nature, strolling around the countryside near her house. She pivots away from social turmoil and finds peace as she begins to depict plant life.

Coinciding with Taipei Dangdai, Motion Within Stillness, Yuan’s solo exhibition, is on view at Tina Keng Gallery in Neihu through June 3. Inspired by the four senses of sight, smell, hearing, and touch, the six series on view are: Intrinsic Potential Landscape, Discrete Islands, Potential of Discrete Islands, Sauntering, Ice Ink, and Sand Line as Water. Becoming aware of the changing state of motion and stillness, the artist ponders how the equilibrium of the mind could be reached in the face of a global tragedy such as Covid.

Important exhibitions include:Motion Within Stillness, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2023); Hidden Emotion in Texture, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2021); Moist and Burnt: As Ink Breathes, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2017); Plural Landscape, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2014); Maternal Landscape, Soochow University Arts Center, Taipei, Taiwan (2011); Reading the Landscape, Stories From Artists, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2016); Collection and Dialogue — Taiwan’s Contemporary Ink Painting, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2014); The New Space: 2009 Exhibition of Contemporary Cross-Strait Ink Paintings, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2009); Form, Idea, Essence, Rhythm: Contemporary East Asian Ink Painting, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2008); Prominent Alumni Exhibition, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan (2007); Qui Ji Da Hua: Ink Painting, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan (2006); Innovational and Experimental Chinese Ink Painting, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (1992).

Sopheap Pich (b. 1971)

Born in Battambang, Cambodia in 1971, Sopheap Pich moved at age 13 to the United States. He now works in Phnom Penh. In 2002, he returned to Cambodia, to the same place he had evacuated from in formative years because of the refugee crisis. His trip back home renewed and reunited him with his cultural identity, which impacts his practice. His style aims to be non-autobiographical, but he embraces the materials from his native country to depict its past. Trained as a painter, he later experimented with sculpting, and manipulating materials. He realized that sculpture was a way to be physically intimate with his environment. He manipulates his materials through boiling, cutting, bending, burning, and dyeing. He allows the materials to speak for themselves, with no hidden narrative. His pieces are very environmental, and inexpensive looking. They are meant to look as though the time put in was worth more than the monetary value of the materials themselves.

Pich has a BFA in painting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1995), and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1999). He returned to Cambodia in 2002. In 2003, he established the artist group Saklapel. His works are housed in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Centre Pompidou, Mori Art Museum, M+, and National Gallery Singapore. He has exhibited extensively, including the Setouchi Triennale (2022), 57^th Venice Biennale (2017), Documenta 13, (2012), Singapore Biennale (2011), and 6^th Asia Pacific Triennale (2009).