When the Taiwanese painter Lee Chin-chu (
"The first few years I didn't have the motivation to paint and when I did, I would use dark colors because I was depressed about being confined indoors," Lee said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTIST
In the beginning, she continued painting landscape scenes from memory, as she had done for 30 years but eventually she began to peruse her more immediate environment.
Soon, both her work and outlook on life transformed, resulting in a large collection of bright paintings, which fill the walls of her current solo exhibition at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (
Her health has improved but nevertheless she continues to focus on subjects closer to home. "I like to paint beautiful things that are meaningful to me," she said, pointing to images of her daughter-in-law, pet dog and her best friend's cat, which can be seen in several of the works on display. Also included in her exhibit are earlier works that use less vibrant, but hardly the dark and morose colors Lee suggested.
Although her recent works use a multitude of colors she balances them without being overbearing. It is a quality her teacher Chang I-chung (
After purchasing three paintings and spending three months of her husband's salary, the Lee and Chang were finally introduced. Recognizing potential in the artist, Chang took her on as a student, although he had already retired.
A year later, Lee followed Chang to France, where she entered the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere for two years. Most of the works on display are a result of her studies from this period. French landscapes and themes derived from the work of famous Western painters, mainly Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh, are obvious in her paintings.
A few landscapes bear a striking resemblance to Van Gogh's Harvest, a painting of wheat fields from Arle in the south of France. Similarly, she uses bright red and orange tones to paint women, as did Gauguin in his paintings from Guadeloupe and Martinique. Looking closely at these works the impression is of imitation, rather than reinterpretation, of a famous artist.
Overall, her exhibition is colorful, bright and full of life, like the artist herself -- and this seems to be the common thread in her work.
Exhibition Notes:
What: Solo exhibition by Lee Chin-chu (
Where: Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (
Telephone: (02) 2392 5080
When: Oct. 30 to Nov. 8, Daily from 9am to 5pm
For many people, Bilingual Nation 2030 begins and ends in the classroom. Since the policy was launched in 2018, the debate has centered on students, teachers and the pressure placed on schools. Yet the policy was never solely about English education. The government’s official plan also calls for bilingualization in Taiwan’s government services, laws and regulations, and living environment. The goal is to make Taiwan more inclusive and accessible to international enterprises and talent and better prepared for global economic and trade conditions. After eight years, that grand vision is due for a pulse check. RULES THAT CAN BE READ For Harper Chen (陳虹宇), an adviser
Traditionally, indigenous people in Taiwan’s mountains practice swidden cultivation, or “slash and burn” agriculture, a practice common in human history. According to a 2016 research article in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, among the Atayal people, this began with a search for suitable forested slopeland. The trees are burnt for fertilizer and the land cleared of stones. The stones and wood are then piled up to make fences, while both dead and standing trees are retained on the plot. The fences are used to grow climbing crops like squash and beans. The plot itself supports farming for three years.
The breakwater stretches out to sea from the sprawling Kaohsiung port in southern Taiwan. Normally, it’s crowded with massive tankers ferrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar to be stored in the bulbous white tanks that dot the shoreline. These are not normal times, though, and not a single shipment from Qatar has docked at the Yongan terminal since early March after the Strait of Hormuz was shuttered. The suspension has provided a realistic preview of a potential Chinese blockade, a move that would throttle an economy anchored by the world’s most advanced and power-hungry semiconductor industry. It is a stark reminder of
The last couple of weeks spectators in Taiwan and abroad have been treated to a remarkable display of infighting in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the supplementary defense budget. The party has split into two camps, one supporting an NT$800 billion special defense budget and one supporting an NT$380 billion budget with additional funding contingent on receiving letters of acceptance (LOA) from the US. Recent media reports have said that the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is leaning toward the latter position. President William Lai (賴清德) has proposed NT$1.25 trillion for purchases of US arms and for development of domestic weapons
RSS