A 29-year-old Taiwanese illustrator would say the best art form to encapsulate the varied aspects of Taiwan is an aesthetic female figure that was created through his paint strokes.
From Penghu’s Tianhou Temple, a Matsu temple built in 1604, to corrugated metal shacks alongside roads, from betel nut beauties to bus drivers, a young illustrator going by the pseudonym Chih Yu (蚩尤) brings the nation’s cultural characteristics, religions, architecture and ecology to life in the form of illustrated female characters.
On the cover of We Stay, We Live, a compilation of about 20 hand-drawn works by Chih, a glamorous woman curls her slender body in a position that mimics the contours of Taiwan.
Photo provided courtesy of Chih Yu
She is embellished from head to toe with Taiwanese features, such as azaleas from Taipei, the Hakka patterns from Miaoli County and the giant Buddha sculpture on Bagua Mountain in Changhua County.
Chih said he put a map of Taiwan underneath the paper he drew on to better adjust the body posture of the female character to represent Taiwan.
The scruffy corrugated metal shacks common throughout Taiwan also come to life through the tip of Chih’s paintbrushes, being transformed into a youthful woman with corrugated steel sheets winding softly around her silken body.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Such a representation hints at the way modern people who live in an urban jungle are smothered by concrete and steel, while becoming habituated to it,” Chih said.
In another illustration titled the Betel Nut Beauties, Chih presents a lighter side of Taiwan. A motorcyclist in the form of a pig — an animal that often represents promiscuous men in Taiwanese culture — is depicted falling off his -motorbike after trying to peep at a betel nut beauty while driving, knocking over the betel nut stand and launching the betel nut beauty into the sky.
The scene was inspired by one of Chih’s personal experiences, he said, in which he crashed his motorcycle because he was staring at a betel nut beauty while driving.
Photo provided courtesy of Chih Yu
We Stay, We Live is meant to convey the way he see the country, Chih said.
“However, what truly matters is not the way I perceive her [Taiwan], but if you [the public] really love her [Taiwan].”
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff Writer
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
President William Lai (賴清德) has appointed former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican City on Saturday on his behalf, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today. The Holy See announced Francis’ funeral would take place on Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square. The ministry expressed condolences over Francis’ passing and said that Chen would represent Taiwan at the funeral and offer condolences in person. Taiwan and the Vatican have a long-standing and close diplomatic relationship, the ministry said. Both sides agreed to have Chen represent Taiwan at the funeral, given his Catholic identity and
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
RSS