Escaping from the sweltering summer heat is not the only reason to visit the air-conditioned Taipei Fine Arts Museum these days. There is also a very “cool” exhibition of paintings by Kuo Wei-kuo (郭維國) titled Diagram of Commotion and Desire – Towards a Bright Start from the Deep Forest, which is on view through Sept. 3.
Kuo is this year's winner of the fifth Liao Chi-chun Oil Painting Award. Like many painters before him, running a business and raising a family came first, but the artistic muse kept tugging at his heartstrings and eventually inspired Kuo to become a committed artist.
The prize recognizes the years of struggle and self-doubt that Kuo has gone through to reach success.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
A scholarship offered by the Taipei Culture Foundation commemorating Taiwanese artist Liao Chi-chun (廖繼春) who lived from 1902 until 1976, the Liao Chi-chun Oil Painting Award is awarded annually to an outstanding oil painter.
Out of a selection of 29 artists, Kuo captured the jury's attention with his consistent narrative images of life, fictional and fantastical creatures and mysterious landscapes.
The self-portrait is one of Kuo's favorite genres as he can show off his finely developed technique of figurative painting. He favors stormy palettes of greys and purples with dramatic scales.
In his self portraits Kuo looks like a gentle giant, with dimpled flesh, aging and paunchy skin, and he often bares a look of surprise on his face. Sometimes winged, sometimes part mythological beast, Kuo is easily discernible in each moody canvas. Occasionally he lies prostrate under a shadowy tree, while in other paintings he's nocturnal, only venturing out in the moonlight to dip his fingers into a stream or to hold a fading rose.
Kuo often works from photographs of himself; the resulting painting compress his figure and space in a way commonly seen in photography.
The influence of American photographer Cindy Sherman is easily discernible in his work.
Even though he is paints with oil on canvas, the theatrical lighting and exaggerated scale creates a narrative of the grotesque, of a fairy tale gone awry.
In Accompanied by a Yellow Butterfly, barely clothed, he is depicted climbing a gnarled vine that looms high above the burning and smoldering city that lies in tatters below.
Beginning in 1998, Kuo steeped himself in the darkness of metaphorical and allegorical imagery for seven years with his Diagram of Commotion and Desire series; he calls this period the deep forest.
After exploring his demons, Kuo found the self-confidence that he felt was sorely lacking in his life and moved on from his deep forest period into the more light and airy style that can be seen in his recent work.
This transition is best illustrated in Farewell to Diagram of Commotion and Desire. In it the artist rides a horse-drawn cart that carries a coffin filled with the symbolical imagery of his previous work. He looks over his shoulder and waves to the viewer as if to say the past is firmly behind him and he is ready to move on to a brighter future. He carries an umbrella as the weather is as unpredictable as his future.
In his recent work, Kuo exudes playfulness, albeit of a morbid tone. His palette has become more colorful and silly cartoon characters have started to make an appearance. In The Confessions of a Purplish Red Pig, the artist wears a suit and stands modestly in front of one of his paintings while a red upright pig is shown in deep conversation with a woman who is interviewing him.
The Salvation of Astro Boy seems like an archeological dig with the excavation of the titular figure. With tears streaming down his face, Astro Boy lies helpless on the ground like Gulliver stranded in the land of the Lilliputians, while the artist, dressed like a nurse, holds a rope pulling out the boy' heart.
Exhibition notes:
What: Kuo Wei-kuo's Diagram of Commotion and Desire - Towards a Bright Start from the Deep Forest (暴喜圖)
Where: Taipei Fine Art Museum, 181 Zhongshan North Road, Sec. 3, Taipei (臺北市中山北路三段181號)
When: Until Sept. 3
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