2024 paradise - Solo exhibition of Ching-chih Chen

Kiln-fired glass, canvas, paper sculpture

There is a beautiful planet in the vast universe that is known as earth, the place where we live. There are also many unknown worlds in our beautiful home, but the human beings who claim to be the spirits of all things have made wars and plagues. In so doing, people are separated from each other and communication is stopped as the epidemic spreads in the world ... When human beings put masks on and their movements are restricted, the source of pollution gradually decreases, and the animals begin to rejuvenate.

The themes that artists focus on are inseparable from their own background and experience. Being a woman myself, women have been the conscious subject of my work. The creation of the little girl began in 2019, and no matter how old the woman or man is, there is always a little girl or little boy living in her/his heart. That little girl is the origin of my art work.

The games with animals in the story Little Red Riding Hood, for example, resembles joyfulness between the little girl and the animals in the Garden of Eden. The ‘circle’ is not only the entrance for the little girl to travel through the ‘space-time tunnel’ but also the exit for her return to reality. The animals have their own symbolic meaning, and there are various relationship between the little girl and the animals. For example, protection, love, fun, humour and irony. The characteristics of innocence, purity and the dream-state of the little girl are shown through the bright and strong colors of glass ... And the characteristic features of glass make the work look like bubbles, precious and yet fragile. They symbolize peace and warmth, and can go pop! at any time.
 

‘Circles’ are like bubbles or floating islands. They can pay random visit among the islands... This is a utopia of Ching-Chih's imaginary world. In there, the little girl can play as much as she wishes with different animals until being exhausted. In the virtual imagination, the little girl symbolizes coexistence between pure innocence and beauty of human beings with animals. Only then will the earth have a better future, and it belongs to the utopia (paradise) that the author is longing for.

The ‘Glaze Poetry’ is an experimental creation from kiln-fired glass. It uses the circle as the dominate feature, because such a shape can accommodate all things. In my experiment, I tried to imbed all sorts of imaginings in the glass, including my connection with land, and my daily activities. The glass contains soil, plants, moss, sand, seeds dug from fruits, woven metal, lace, zippers from old clothes, etc … these were brought back from my travels across Taiwan. The glass was fired and quenched in the kiln at more than 800 degrees. 

I am a traveler. I use an ultra-self-oriented way to wander the streets and have dialogue with the space. Over my thirty years doing this, time passes and space changes. What remains the same is that I use lenses to reach the world, and I look at everything through the camera. Very often, while the lens is focused externally, I reflected inwardly. When the shutter is flashed/pressed/on, it races with unending time for 1/125 second. It seems as if I try to a find lost part of myself from somewhere in the world.

For me, filming is like creating a painting. Geometrical pattern has to come prior to a narrative. It has been my belief that a piece of creation has to have both form and content.  I want to provide imagination and visual impact for things of this secular world through filming. So I transform the image through poetic-style observation. This approach enriches my mind. In the process therefore I produce a narrative to record my own experience through capture of images.

The pictures of this exhibition sit between the real and the non-representational. Some of images were captured at right time by chance, turning moments into eternity. Some were the result of long-waiting: for ideal or desired light, people, locations. Waiting is a mindful practice. No matter it is an instant, or a long wait, it is instinct which determines whether to take the shot or not. An instinct called forth by the setting.

The works capture unplanned moments and planned waiting in many corners of Taiwan; the interesting scenes of the lobby of the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore; a performance by the Golden Gate of the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco; the romantic atmosphere when strolling on the street in Paris; net-like electric lines hanging above the streets of Neizu in Tokyo; and … Every photo, every work is a trip, a past, a memory. When selecting those works, it felt as if I was putting together the jigsaw of memory. All the good parts of travels revealed themselves again vividly.

Images are floating on the ocean of meaning; they were ever frozen in one corner. Roland Barthes said captions for images or this kind of text are like throwing an anchor into the sea, it stops the waves and tide of thought/mind/imagination, but fix the idea in one corner. What did I capture through my camera? Let the works speak for themselves. So I won’t provide any individual captions. What do you see? We shall leave the observers to decide for themselves, freely; though I hope there will be some sparks. This could be an experiment, a game, or a test.

102網站屢遭有心人士入侵且破壞，已報警處理；希望此仁君能停止此等不正當行為。

Curator: WANG YI-WEN

In his 2023 series entitled “Borders．Crests”, Yang Shang-feng brought his reflections on these topics - were gained over many years in working in fashion design, iron sculpture, synthetic wood, paper and mixed media. His experiences allowed him to create objects which could be strong but light, stable but also gracefully elegant: abstractions of his thoughts and inner world. 

While from a distance, his work looks as if hard metal grasps tightly on wall in a flying motion; or on close examination, his sculpture looks like broken iron pieces, crowded together, resembling the crashing of water on rocks, generating broken waves, their peaks pushing and overlapping, one after another.

【Gallery Closure Notice】June 21, 2023
Closed on June 22, 2023 for the Dragon Boat Festival.

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Exhibition: Dual Solo Exhibition of Hong-Zhang Zheng & Shu-Yu Kuo
Duration: May 18, 2023 - July 8, 2023
Closing Symposium: June 25 (Sunday), 15:00
Speakers: Congxian Zhang, Hong-Zhang Zheng, Shu-Yu Kuo
Venue: 102 Contemporary Art Space