3月3日-5月7日台湾版画家廖修平画展大地360

Liao Shiou Ping 廖修平

The pioneer of Modern Printmaking in Taiwan

Opening reception: March 3rd, 2011 6-8 pm

curated by Luchia Meihua Lee

Lecture & video: Saturday February 26, 2011 6pm@Taiwan Center, Flushing NY
Opening reception @ Chelsea Art Museum: Thursday March 3rd, 2011 6-8pm
Demo and talks @ Chelsea Art Museum: Saturday March 5, 2011 2-5pm
Exhibition runs from March 4 to May 7, 2011

Liao's work is intimately involved with and reflects the influence of his environment. His art is always fresh and vital because of its local Taiwanese flavor and abundance of unique cultural phenomena, such as the use of red and golden leaves of eastern mythology. The subjects of his art are daily objects, which seemingly belie the underlying universality of the motifs as well as the profound emotion lurking under the surface of his art's symmetry. Thus, his art is simultaneously rational and emotional, local folk art and global.

Gate Series

Liao commenced his artistic career by looking for a way to use the techniques that he had learned in France, the United States, and Japan with his cultural background. One of his earlier answers to this artistic challenge, undertaken when he lived in New York and studied at the Pratt Graphics Center, was his Gate Series. Typically, these geometrically organized prints employed red, black, and gold - the colors traditionally found in Taiwanese temples - and exhibited a high degree of symmetry. Gates of course are potent symbols of entrance and passage as well as secrets both hidden and about to be revealed. The prints in the Gate Series, with their religious symbols and representations of items from daily life, concerned themselves not so much with the individual but more emphatically with the relations between man and society and between man and the universe.

Symbols of Life Series

Liao developed much later a series in some ways reminiscent of the Gate Series; the Symbols of Life Series also made extensive use of objects from daily life in Taiwan - for example, houses, chopsticks, scissors, fans, combs, and so on - arranged symmetrically within boundaries. These silkscreens, also using red, black, and gold, convey feelings of auspiciousness and good luck - similar to the traditional Taiwanese prints of the gods of wealth and good fortune which people hang in their homes in order to bring harmony and good luck to the household.

Dream Series

After the death in 2002 of Liao's wife of over 40 years, his art changed dramatically. These mixed-media works largely abandoned the red, black and gold of his earlier paintings as well as their highly symmetric organizations. This series featured hands stretched forth from the ground towards the sky, as if from beyond the grave. The stark contrast between life and death reflects the dualistic yin-yang relationship.

Recent Developments

After the therapy of the Dream Series, Liao has turned to different subjects and equally importantly to different methods. He has expanded his repertoire to sculpture and returned to oil painting as well. Still now, he continues to promote printmaking all over the world.

廖修平的作品與他的成長環境有著牢不可分的關係 ,他的藝術創作經常是鮮明而有活力的 , 因為有著強烈的台灣地方性與豐富的文化氣質 , 比如他使用紅與金箔表現的東方神秘感 , 他的畫作擷取極多的日常物件題材 , 並普遍的潛伏在多數的作品中 ,就像將深厚的情感掩飾在對稱平衡圖像內。是以他的作品兼具理性與感性, 地方與全球性。

就如美國西東大學曲培淳教授的論述中提到的:「..廖修平就是這種亞洲現代主義創作的先驅，他在很多方面引領了像是蔡國強、艾未未等著名的當代藝術家。身為一個版畫家，廖修平使用的媒介和這些藝術家不同，作品規模也比較小，但他明白東亞藝術的未來必須要能成功地融合東西方的觀念。...」而早在60年代,他在巴黎美術學院油畫教授薛士德(Roger Chastal)就已及時點醒了他：「來自東方的藝術家，該有你獨自的個性和東方風格。」，廖修平的創作轉向並逐步發展出一種獨特的符號與語彙, 這種表現混合了國際藝術流派但卻深刻的表達了台灣的文化特質。

Chelsea Art Museum
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