Mosquito Nail Shan Shui: the Artworks of Chen Chun-Hao

The Tina Keng Gallery is pleased to present Mosquito Nail Shan Shui – The Artworks of Chen Chun-Hao, the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.  The exhibition will be on view at our space in Neihu from August 6 to August 28, 2011 (opening reception: August 6, 4:30pm-7:00 p.m.). The exhibition encompasses 17 recent works, demonstrating Chen’s intricate use of industrial materials to recreate famous shan shui(mountain-water) paintings.

Since 1997 Chen has experimented with the use of industrial materials in his work, such as thumbtacks.  For the works of Mosquito Nail Shan ShuiChen carefully “copies” landscape paintings found at the National Palace Museum, Taipei and abroad, by placing diminutive mosquito nails on canvas.  After precise calculations, for his first completed piece, Early Spring for the Mosquito Nail(2010), Chen used a specially designed nail gun to place as many as 400,000 stainless steel mosquito nails on canvas.  Enlarging the original Early Spring (1072), he then carefully replaced the ink of the scroll with the mosquito nails, which emerge about 1cm from the surface of the canvas.  Each nail is therefore thought to be “profound,” as it punctures the surface of the canvas and gives texture to his two-dimensional source works.

The pieces of Mosquito Nail Shan Shui mark not only Chen’s return to Eastern art traditions, but also exhibit his interest in Western painting techniques. The mosquito nails, at times grouped together, and at others showing the small specks of ink from the original landscape paintings, produce effects of light, shadow, and water vapor, seen in such works as Kuo Hsi’s Early Spring(1072, Northern Sung Dynasty).  Chen, through the act of “copying,” absorbs and learns from the masters of landscape painting.  In doing so, he injects them with a contemporary interpretation of Chinese shan shui.

Chen Chun-Hao

Born in Nantou, Taiwan, in 1971 and he now lives and works in Taipei.  He received a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the Taipei National University of the Arts (1996) and a Masters in Plastic Arts from the National Tainan University of the Arts (1998).  In addition to his work as an artist, he has a long career as a curator and director of arts organizations. He is a member of the VT Art Salon in Taipei, where he has also exhibited his work.  He has participated in numerous exhibitions, including at the Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2009), the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2001, 2006), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (2005), and the Headlands Arts Center in San Francisco, California (2002).