KOHA｜ 台北｜免費展覽｜誠品畫廊《 李元佳、洪藝真、郭思敏 聯展 》

ESLITE GALLERY is set to showcase a joint exhibition in July, featuring the artwork of three remarkable artists: LI Yuan-chia, Yi-Chen HUNG, and Szumin KUO. Each bringing to the fore their unique take on abstract creations, their artistic exploration traverses various mediums, from painting and sculpture to mixed media and hybrid forms of painting and sculpture. Employing the fundamental elements of dots, lines, and planes to carve out spatial constructs, their artistic pursuits unravel the essence of art and ignite boundless imagination in the viewers. The pieces on display enter into an interactive dialogue with each other, eloquently expressing the intrinsic poetry of abstract art.

LI Yuan-chia was born in Guangxi, China in 1929 and passed away in Cumbria, England in 1994. His art education was shaped at the institution now known as the National Taipei University of Education and he studied under the tutelage of LI Chun Shan, a trailblazer in Taiwan’s modern art. In 1962, LI moved to Italy, later relocating to the UK in 1966, where he made his home. LI’s creative practice encompassed numerous mediums, including ink wash, oil painting, monochrome painting, photography, mixed media, and performance art. His most iconic concept, the “cosmic point”, evolves from a minuscule calligraphic mark to a circular representation, a visual art element symbolizing the universe. His works from the 1960s, on view in this exhibition, reflect his dedication to fusing Eastern philosophies with Western art forms, conveying deep oriental philosophical ideas through abstract imagery.

Yi-Chen HUNG was born in Tainan in 1971 and passed away in Taipei in 2011. In the early 1990s, HUNG pursued art studies in the UK, earning a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Reading, before returning to Taiwan in 2004. While studying in the UK in 1999, HUNG began experimenting with expanding and challenging the conventional belief that painting was confined to expression or representation solely on a canvas. This exhibition highlights her adept deconstruction of painting’s basic components—canvas, paint, and frame—in an attempt to redefine the customary physical confines of painting. Through this endeavor, she fashioned conceptual and architectural spaces, traces of which can be perceived in some of the showcased artworks. She later ventured to engage in a profound dialectic of “What constitutes an original work?” She utilized fiberglass to replicate her works on canvas or made her own mold to reproduce the texture of the canvas with acrylic paint and transplant this layer onto another canvas, challenging the viewer’s visual discernment. This way, she revisited painting in a groundbreaking manner.

Szumin KUO’s creation presents concise and elegant geometric sculptures. Be it the Metamorphosis, Inversion, or Meandering series, her background in architecture shines through the cool sleek metal, exuding refined artistry in her pieces. KUO, born in Taipei in 1964, received her master’s degree in architecture from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She harbors a deep passion for artistic creation, using metals like stainless steel and iron to forge geometric forms. After several steps of surface treatments, including painting, rusting, rust prevention, scraping, and polishing, she brings forth a non-figurative sense of spatial order. KUO believes that “the allure of abstraction lies in its boundless room for imagination.” The abstraction she delves into is not a finite construct, but a dynamic, intangible space extending along the trajectories of light and shadow. The created space invites viewers into a vast, fantastical realm, enabling them to uncover a multitude of possibilities within the simplest of structures.