Double Square 双方藝廊

Long Chin-San is reputed to be “the father of Asian photography” in modern China. He combined his learning and understanding of Chinese ink painting with photography, blending the documentary and the painterly to capture the characteristic momentum of air and unadorned elegance in Eastern culture. He has always upheld the ideal of “combining photography and painting” to dissolve the differences of media between these two art forms, and emphasized on their commonalities as two-dimensional visual arts. Long believed in guiding the photographic art with the “six principles of Chinese painting” proposed by Xie He, a scholar of the Southern Qi Period, and developed the “composite” and “photogram” series that integrated the essences of Eastern and Western art on both the theoretical and technical levels, utilizing Western technological inventions to elevate the realistic effect of Chinese art. His endeavor freed him from the limitation of techniques and allowed him to more effectively concentrate on pursuing the realization of artistic concept, poeticness and spiritual freedom in his work.

Marvin-Minto Fang draws his inspiration from nature, and converts his observations of environment and life into the new soul of lifeless trees. As the branches stretch and extend, they become a union of humans and trees; and their appearances subtly emit a tranquil yet resilient force of life, captivating the audience’s attention and drawing them in with nature’s poetry. He gives different materials the features of renewed life through craftsmanship. Whether similar forms or mimetic patterns, the details are not meant to replicate the original plants, but to employ visual signification to reveal the regularity and order of life’s continuation.

Cindy’s creative principles stem from the aesthetics of the Song Dynasty. She is innovative, without abandoning tradition; she preserves the deep roots of traditional ink, but she uses contemporary ideas and modern materials to interpret its mood. For many years, she has attempted to liberate ink from its subservience to the brush and its long-standing purpose as vehicle for text and images. She ends the established and almost indivisible partnership between the ink and the brush, bringing ink to video, photography, paper, and oil painting. She has even experimented with new media, including interactive technologies. Her ink works cross regions and media, revealing the unique essence of ink. She has explored ink for more than twenty years, and in that time, she has discovered that ink has unique expressive traits.

Lin Chien-Jung specializes in amalgamating light bulb and sculpture, using his ingenious combination to embody the indescribable elements in life. Through mimetic objects and environmental installations, he reconstructs a blank canvas for self-projection. Some of his works have endearing appearances that remind people of cartoons or toys. On the one hand, they are inspired by the artist’s precious, nostalgic childhood memories; on the other hand, they also suggest an element of temporal distance that gives these works a friendly yet uncanny quality. Lin hopes that his work can evoke the audience’s personal experience so that they can rediscover the innocence and joy buried in their mind, through which they will then be released from the binding social norms and restrictions.

Youki Hirakawa’s works combine oriental Zen philosophy with occidental pluralistic art style, demonstrating his cross-cultural creative thinking. The omnipresent yet invisible “time” dominates over everything, while tangible things are destined to demise. Hirakawa is fascinated by such irreversibility, wishing to stop time from elapsing by sealing it in his artworks. Hirakawa received rigorous training in film production, which contributed substantially to his proficiency in embodying time with images. He attempts to unveil and liberate the intangible time hidden behind objects, events and spaces, thereby highlighting its nature of fluidity. Through his observation on natural and quotidian objects such as trees, stones, leaves, candles, and old photographs, these objects become the carrier of time. Hirakawa spent large amounts of time recording their changes with photography or videos, embedding sheer vitality into digital technology. In his works, Hirakawa filters out colors and sounds, leaving time and space in a void, where he reviews them as images and recites them into verses of time in a slow and comforting rhythm. He invites the viewers to grasp and perceive the world with a brand new perspective by slowing down their pace of life.