Most reviewers of Lee Ai-chen's (
Silver Lining (吉光片羽), Lee's current exhibition at Cherng Pin Gallery (誠品畫廊), has gathered 28 works by the 31-year-old artist created since 2001, when she last exhibited in Taiwan. All done on large-scale aluminum plates, Lee's new works are in the same atmospheric vein of her earlier works that have induced lyrical ravings from her viewers and critics.
At first glance, Lee's images are easily mistaken for blown-up details of negatives of faded or unfocused photos, or cells seen under a microscope, or satellite pictures of the surface of an alien planet. The list of possible subjects goes on. Viewers faced with the non-indicative colors and seemingly representative shapes shown on a photograph-like flat and glossy surface are almost certain to project their own subconsciousness onto these abstractions.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHERNG PIN GALLERY
The effect is enhanced by the size of panels, all larger than a person. The triptych Black and White (
Lee herself apparently sees a lot of nature in her works. Aquatic Mountains(
"The first inspiration for my work came from a vision of tar, which contains many different tones [due to the] little stones. When I looked at it, I felt dizzy and hard to focus on a single spot. This visual experience attracted me. I knew it was caused by the countless spots and subtle different tones," Lee wrote in her notes for an exhibition in New York.
Trained first in sculpture and then in painting, Lee tends to "treat the canvas itself as a kind of material, and I want viewers [to be] aware of its two-dimensional reality -- flatness."
Lee has a freer approach to oil and created these variations of spots and tones with everything but brushes. Often, she wipes off excessive paint with her hands, leaving a touch of intimacy on the otherwise "distant" panels.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist