About Wu Tung-Lung (吳東龍)
Wu Tung-Lung is one of the few mid-career artists who persist in abstract painting in Taiwan. His works explore the symbolic presentation of organic shapes and the rhythmic arrangement of geometric lines. He developed his unique creative vocabulary and style by ingeniously applying various artistic elements such as linearity, color blocks, volumes, and spaces. All the monochromatic imprimatura, geometric patterns, and minimalist lines and patterns in his works are the abstract yet dramatic landscapes shaped by his strict self-discipline and full consciousness. His works delicately bear the unique signature of handiworks emphasized in traditional paintings, and therefore render themselves visually pleasing by creating a sense of fluidity and freedom. Analyzing the contextual development of the artist’s paintings, we may notice that all his works, whatever in which dimension, successfully harmonize not only polarity but also the law of contradiction with pure and minimalist symbols in a rationally checked yet emotionally charged manner. He creates the experience of simple and elegant colors by presenting the levels of monochromatic imprimatura and the infiltration of different hues of cool colors on the canvas processed under established and complex procedures. In terms of painting technique, the artist neither covers the canvas with layers of intense colors, nor mixes different colors in the strokes. Rather, he removes or ameliorates the artificial painterliness in his works with mechanical back-and-forth brushstrokes. Finally, he gives prominence to the hand-painted texture with quasi-horizontal or daubing strokes, creating dramatic tension and a sense of volume on the seemingly flimsy surface.