After his first solo exhibition in Taiwan as part of last year's Pingtung Arts Festival (2001 屏東半島藝術節), Japanese artist Seiko Kawachi (河內成辛) has found himself much in demand. Private galleries up and down the country, as well as several of the nation's larger fine arts institutes, are quite literally queuing up. While the artist is currently engaged in numerous negotiations, for the next two weeks at least the honor of displaying a selection of his work goes to Taipei's Howard Salon (福華沙龍).
Much of Kawachi's popularity lies with his ability to create contrasting worlds by assimilating traditional woodcut with free brush work and a host of outlandish ideas.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HOWARD SALON
The artist has the ability to bemuse and disturb with his woodcut prints, yet at the same time preserve the tranquility and uniformity in his more standard forms of woodcuts, called ukiyo-e.
"His works are both disturbing and at the same time quite calming," explained gallery supervisor, Lin Tsuey-shya (林翠霞). "Which is probably one of the reasons he's proving so popular in Taiwan where art lovers are attracted by contrast rather than by one particular style of art work."
While his still lifes are proving the most popular with visitors to the gallery, it is his grandiose and almost science fiction-styled works of his Katsura series that make for the most breathtaking viewing.
In the series, Kawachi portrays disquiet and turbulence by replacing humans with oblong structures replete with rigging and robotic features. While these give viewers a feeling of spaciousness and frightening majesty, the works also conjure up images of a hostile and disturbed world in which individuality has been abolished and replaced by angular uniform sameness.
The most eye-catching of the works in his Katsura series is a 1991 work entitled Dialogues. The piece sees the artist combining four canvasses to create an entire universe in which his very un-human oblong forms float listlessly through the atmosphere conversing in some unknown language.
Along with giving viewers plenty to reflect on, some of Kawachi's work also has to power to bemuse. When the artist portrays himself as a chicken, the woodcut artist leaves viewers dumbfound. Not that Kawachi's fowl are of the common variety, as his chickens have the ability to fly.
"He likes to portray himself as a chicken flying away from the environment in which he finds himself," continued Lin. "It's as if he's constantly escaping the claustrophobia of his surroundings."
While all of the works in his Chicken series make for interesting viewing, the most poignant of Kawachi's chicken works is one entitled Convenience. The work depicts the chickens, or Kawachi and mankind as it should be interpreted, escaping from a caged convenience store and the on-the-shelf lifestyle in which they have found themselves imprisoned.
What: Seiko Kawachi Printmaking (河內成辛-台灣個展)
Where: Howard Salon, 2F, 160 Jenai Rd., Sec. 3, Taipei (福華沙龍 - 台北市仁愛路160號3段2樓)
When: Until Nov. 20
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