Vigor Style of Chin Up

I have lived in Kaohsiung with simple life since 1972.  I upheld an attitude of "everyone is frivolous throughout his young life", also, I have experienced life of "crying for poverty" and "be brave to every accident”. I have witnessed too many circumstances where people attack with each other to strive for more power, be desirous about complicated social fairness and justice, also labeling myself a lot and posting with symbol. In artistic creation, regardless of deconstruction and dialectics of the materials, or artistic expression of symbol, we have repeatedly flipped and transform for being innovative; I always create problems on my own, then, resolve them one by one ranged from "withered landscape", "humanity series" to "dark complex" and even "multimedia-based contemporary ink painting", rich and wonderful, strange and strong.

Artistic creation is foundation of mankind and nature enjoying honor jointly; it is also the soul of time. My masterpieces share glory of nature, breathing together that they are closely related to the pulse of society; it has idea belonging to philosophy, also reflection on sociology. The research made on art is not limited to the work itself, but should discuss more social situations, as the vacuum state or surgery of transplantation or window culture is not about flesh and blood, and I only rely on sensitive genes and origin of idea seed with anxiety.

I am getting old and intend to take some rest; however, I cannot stop…

In recent years, the social and political transformation in Taiwan changes, but, it was not vigorous or brilliant as the martial law period after 1987; on the contrary, it is like a circus tightrope game, dangerous, absurd, and helpless....  Is the tragedy fate of Taiwan an ordained "void" image?  If so, how to express it with "reality"?

All activities from the sales of national land, food safety issues to urban city redistricting process can trace back to a monster reforming culture..., and the style of hero brevity in our consecutive eagerness of facing glory is expected to "act with mighty wind and broad cloud", however, it became confusion throughout blurred vision, and all of these have become the decoction of medicine; certainly, the lyric writing of personal life also is used to tell a joke with irony tone and exaggeration, so narcissistic in the trend. Being arrogant, not like an artist with purity of style, I realized such coldness and peevish is not good for the art gallery and wife, hence, the art gallery had rare invitation to me, as only “boring work” would make others have a “mixed feelings".

Anyway, except for transcription of scripture, I had nothing to do but obsessed myself with painting in the studio over the last year. "102" was courageous to declare a solo exhibition with invitation dispatched. A promise worth one thousand in gold, and “102” is not tolerated in those new works; however, not only “six circles”, but also “five worlds” exist in a dozen of works. There is "wisdom" and "ignorance" exaggerated therein, but I always develop myself throughout works, so that "Bodhi" is filled in my life and the social environment in Taiwan, and culture and art at hometown can be enlightened. The attitude I uphold in the face of reality with "humanitarian" is applied to "look into the world", and "artistic interpretation", which is very hard, lonely; however, I was happy to hide among brown painting materials of the studios in the dilapidated military dependent community, thinking of the scene in the "Monument in Shabby Home" composed by Liu, Yu-Xi, “Adjust my plain zither, reading gold scripture, neither with the chaos of string disturbing my ears, nor exhaust formed by a variety of tasks", or let me daze and look at

 a body with chin up

 strength of character after death

                                                                                          Hong, Ken-Shen        2016.7