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Migratory artists display their wares

By Susan Kendzulak
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Sunday, May 30, 2004, Page 19

Stephen Eastaugh's Stay is paradoxical with its roots that are rootless, much like its nomadic author. PHOTO: SUSAN KENDZULAK

If you are an artist, writer, dancer, choreographer, composer, etc., you then know the importance of having the solitude to think, read, and dream in order to create new work, or if not solitude, the opportunity to live for a short period of time in an artistic environment with like-minded thinkers.

Artists in residencies (AIR), or art colonies have sprung up around the world. And without them the world would be culturally poorer. Not only do AIRs benefit the individual, this interaction among different cultural milieus helps to promote -- in an utopian sort of way -- a deeper understanding beyond borders, an ersatz kind of diplomacy.

The Taipei Artist Village (TAV) is one such thriving place and has become very successful in that foreign artists can spend time here learning about Taiwan, while Taiwanese artists reciprocally can go abroad. Currently on view at the TAV gallery is a group show of three artists called Esthetics of Migration (to June 6).

Ceramicist Chou Pang-ling (周邦玲) recently returned from her residency at the Colorado College, while both Taipei-based artist Yang Chun-sen (楊春森) spent one month and Australian painter Stephen Eastaugh spent three months at TAV. The exhibition is a good opportunity to see what happens to artists when they have had the chance to work uninterrupted in their studios.

Chou Pang-ling's holy entertainment - i(m) is based on the Pieta. This piece combines the deep personal sorrow of loss with an undercurrent of dark humor. PHOTO: :SUSAN KENDZULAK

Since 1987, Chou has worked in several art residencies abroad. Working mainly in clay, she combines different materials such as found objects, sticks, metal, and paint, and defies easy categorization as a ceramicist. Chou pushes the limits of ceramics as some works resemble paintings, sculptures, installations, and wall plaques.

Chou creates her work much like a jazz improviser. Even though a "found object is a modernist convention/invention as it is an object from one's daily environment that is incorporated into the art, Chou retrieves used ceramic pieces as they impart deep meaning into her work as these pieces have a story behind them.

In M Offering, a Giacometti-like platform of figures traverse a base while the scale of large and small shapes create its own little universe. Running the Run with Earnest seems more like a painting as the clay pieces are set on a piece of green-painted wood. Again, Chou has created a hermetic world similar to Joseph Cornell's collaged boxes.

Like Chou, Stephen Eastaugh goes from residency to residency and his paintings stitched and impastoed on bandages reflect his nomadic travels. M.O.O.Ps. (Man out of Phase) is a series of eight panels completed at a residency in Antarctica. Having sunlight 24/7 in the summer puts people's body clocks out of whack, creating confusion, hence the phrase: MOOP. Whimsically stitched, the small containers where people live, work and eat give off a sense of isolation and barrenness, while also relating to the mapping/dreaming work of Australian aboriginal artists.

For an artist who doesn't stay in one place long enough, the series Where? sums up the wandering lifestyle. Each panel playfully contains the phrases: whereby, where, wherever, where am I, where to now. In Stay red rootless roots are thickly painted onto the canvas giving the feel of the encaustic wax technique that the artist abandoned due to moving around and not having a permanent studio.

A more rooted artist, Yang exhibits his work in a curtained-off room. The optical fibers and LED set up on umbrella ribs periodically light up, glow and diminish appearing like an underwater sea with electrical jellyfish. These huge creatures don't menace but seem gentle like fireworks seen from a safe distance.

For your information :

What: Esthetics of Migration

Where: Taipei Artist Village: 7 Beiping Street, Taipei (台北市北平東路7號).

When: Until June 6
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