Huang Ko-wei’s (黃可維) tropical bird paintings are currently on display at Aki Gallery in the show Phantom Gray (空灰). The title is somewhat puzzling as Huang’s paintings are anything but drab. Rather, colorful birds flutter about rain forests and other lush settings, appearing blissful and seemingly oblivious to the world around them. The backgrounds of the paintings are off-gray and foggy, making the birds stand out even more — perhaps that’s the “phantom gray.” Human figures are vaguely noticeable in the paintings, blending in with the pixels and textures of the rain forest. Huang makes clear that it’s the birds who are the main subjects of these paintings, and perhaps we could learn something from their orderly yet carefree nature.
■ 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 Jan. 3
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Incarnation (另一個身體) is a haunting solo exhibition by Huang Chin-hua (黃錦華) at Kalos Gallery. For this series of paintings, Huang uses traditional ink painting techniques to portray clouds, rocks and other objects found in nature such that they resemble flesh, bones and other body parts. The curvature of each fold in the cloud or each crinkle in the skin is so detailed and precise that it’s beautiful and eerie at the same time. Huang not only breathes life into these objects, but her paintings also remind us that we must treat all living things with respect, as they are all part of our ecosystem.
■ Kalos Gallery (真善美畫廊), 269, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段269號), tel: (02) 2836-3452. Open daily from 10am to 6:30pm
■ Until Jan. 9
Photo courtesy of Nunu Fine Art
Singaporean artist group Vertical Submarine is in town this weekend for the grand opening of their installation John Martin — The Butcher and the Surgeon (約翰馬汀:屠夫和外科醫生), which is to be held at Nunu Fine Art. The installation was inspired by John Martin Scripps, the first Westerner to be hanged in Singapore for three counts of murder which he committed in Singapore and Thailand in the 1990s. The art gallery has even redesigned their space to convert it into what they imagine to be Scripps’ hotel room where he committed some of the murders. It is complete with an en suite bathroom, two single beds and a used ash tray. The fun part is that visitors can walk through the “scene of the crime” and play detective.
■ 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 tomorrow. Until Jan. 16
Chao Yu-hsiu’s (趙宇脩) landscape paintings and calligraphy, painted on scrolls which take up entire walls from floor to ceiling, are currently on display at ArtDoor Gallery. Entitled Secret Path to Creek Mountains (谿山秘徑), the exhibition evokes a bygone era before modern technology when all that mattered was enjoying the simple, rustic countryside where rivers meander majestically and mountains stretch to the clouds. Chao’s paintings are done in the traditional way, with less attention paid to background and foreground, and more detail on the curvature and texture of the terrain on the mountains.
■ ArtDoor Gallery (藝境畫廊) 639, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路639號), tel: (02) 2658-5268. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Jan. 17
Japanese performance artist Kaya Hanasaki was so moved by the stories of the former residents of Treasure Hill Artist Village — which was once a squatter community composed of war veterans who retreated to Taiwan with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — that she decided to base her residency project on telling their personal histories. Her solo exhibition, My Home, Our Treasure (我的家園,我們的寶藏), explores their experiences of displacement and carving out a new identity, as well as the experiences of residents from other communities in Taiwan with similar histories. In other words, the exhibition aims to capture the essence of the innate human need to feel at “home.”
■ Treasure Hill Artist Village, 71 (寶藏巖國際藝術村,71), 2, Ally 14, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段230巷14弄2號), tel: (02) 2364-5313. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Jan. 31
On Facebook a friend posted a dashcam video of a vehicle driving through the ash-colored wasteland of what was once Taroko Gorge. A crane appears in the video, and suddenly it becomes clear: the video is in color, not black and white. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake’s destruction on April 3 around and above Taroko and its reverberations across an area heavily dependent on tourism have largely vanished from the international press discussions as the news cycle moves on, but local residents still live with its consequences every day. For example, with the damage to the road corridors between Yilan and
May 13 to May 19 While Taiwanese were eligible to take the Qing Dynasty imperial exams starting from 1686, it took more than a century for a locally-registered scholar to pass the highest levels and become a jinshi (進士). In 1823, Hsinchu City resident Cheng Yung-hsi (鄭用錫) traveled to Beijing and accomplished the feat, returning home in great glory. There were technically three Taiwan residents who did it before Cheng, but two were born in China and remained registered in their birthplaces, while historians generally discount the third as he changed his residency back to Fujian Province right after the exams.
With William Lai’s (賴清德) presidential inauguration coming up on May 20, both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been signaling each other, possibly about re-opening lines of communication. For that to happen, there are two ways this could happen, one very difficult to achieve and the other dangerous. During his presidential campaign and since Lai has repeatedly expressed his hope to re-establish communication based on equality and mutual respect, and even said he hoped to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) over beef noodles and bubble tea. More dramatically, as explored in the May 2 edition of this column,
Gaotai Mountain (高台山) and the three Daotian Peaks (小中大島田山回來) afford visitors a truly rewarding hike in Hsinchu County (新竹). Located in the foothills just beyond the charming Neiwan Old Street (內灣老街), the hike is well suited for hikers in a fair to good physical condition. It’s also a good introduction to the foothills of northwest Taiwan, along with some more adventurous — but still not terribly dangerous — rope and scrambling sections. As a bonus, there are Japanese ruins, hot springs and river tracing destinations such as Meihua Waterfall (梅花瀑布) and Bilin Waterfall (比麟瀑布) all located nearby. WHISPERING PINES The first section of