Painter Nikos Aslanidis may hail from Greece where sunny days are abundant and the beach beckons, but his expressionist-style paintings are far from that reality. His dark and brooding paintings of decomposing figures are currently on display at Aki Gallery in the aptly named exhibition, Painting (深 ‧ 呼吸) (the Chinese title, however, is “deep breathing”). His figures — many of which bear animalistic traits — furtively blend into the background, which is normally a dark hue, or bloody maroon. The paintings, while intensely melancholic, also have an alluring pull and more importantly, they speak to the innate human propensity to be drawn to mysterious things — no matter how sinister they are.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Until Sept. 25
Photo courtesy of Galerie Nichido Taipei
Opening this Saturday at Mind Set Art Center is Figurative Illusion (靡像), a solo exhibition by the Taipei-born painter, Jhong Jiang-ze (鍾江澤). His paintings of mangled human limbs fusing into colorful backdrops are both intriguing and frightening. His most recent works, particularly Air Raid and Line of Defense, depict people trying to carry on with their daily lives while living under the threat of war. The themes of fragmentation and displacement are more pronounced in these works. While Jhong claims to be inspired by Buddhist and Taoist beliefs, his distorted portraitures also seem to contain hints of Western expressionism and is especially reminiscent of the works of Edvard Munch.
■ Mind Set Art Center (安卓藝術), 7F, 180, Heping E Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市和平東路一段180號7樓), tel: (02) 2365-6008. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm
■ Opens Saturday. Until Oct. 8
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
Galerie Nichido Taipei will be showcasing As Small as the Universe (如豆的宇宙), a joint exhibition of 10 artists from Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong. The exhibition, which opens Saturday, includes works that revolve around the character, dou (豆). In both Chinese and Japanese, its literal meaning is “beans” and some artworks, are in fact, paintings of beans. On display, for instance, is Liu Chih-hung’s (劉致宏) very lovely black-and-white painting of a shaved ice and red bean dessert entitled, Shaved Ice with Matcha and Red Beans. But the character dou apparently has other meanings as well. In Japanese, when used as a prefix, it means “small” — for instance, a “small plate” or a “small plant.” Likewise, the exhibition will also showcase works that exemplify how tiny we humans are in relation to the vast universe that’s out there. Huang Pin-ling’s (黃品玲) work, fleshes this out particularly well. Her pastel-hued paintings of landscapes evoke a sense of loneliness and introspection.
■ Galerie Nichido Taipei (台北日動畫廊), 3F, 57, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段57號3樓), tel: (02) 2579-8795. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens Saturday. Oct. 22
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
Kinetic installation artist Ding Chien-chung (丁建中) has a new exhibition opening in Galerie Grand Siecle this Saturday. Beneath Daylight (日光之下) features a series of installations that were influenced by Ding’s frequent mountain climbing trips. In it, he seeks to replicate the feeling of trekking through different types of vegetation and experiencing extremes of temperature from scorching hot to bone-chilling cold — basically, representing the ups and downs of human emotions. Ironically, this is all conveyed through Ding’s signature minimalistic-style artwork which is created by kinetic machines shooting images into space — not normally what we would associate warm feelings with.
■ Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術), 17, Alley 51, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷51弄17號), tel: (02) 2578-5630. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Opens Saturday. Until Oct. 23
Photo courtesy of Nunu Fine Art
On display at Nunu Fine Art starting this Sunday are the works of American sculptor and photographer Petah Coyne. Entitled A Free Life (自由生活), the exhibition includes both her blurry black-and-white photography from the 1990s and her gigantic and elaborate sculptures made from found material such as human hair, hay, religious statues, bird cages and chicken wire. Bird motifs feature predominantly in her work, hence the exhibition title. Needless to say, Coyne has a talent for transforming the ordinary into fantastical. The exhibition promises to be anything but boring — even wandering the gallery itself could be interpreted as a form of interactive art as viewers must be prepared to step over wax sculptures and watch out for clunky chandeliers hanging overhead.
■ Nunu Fine Art (路由藝術), 5, Ln 67, Jinshan S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市金山南路1段67巷5號), tel: (02) 3322-6207. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from noon to 7pm
■ Opens Sunday. Until Nov. 6
Photo courtesy of Galerie Nichido Taipei
Photo courtesy of Nunu Fine Art
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and