Subsurface Inclination: Joint Exhibition by Hsu YungHsu and Mia Wen-Hsuan Liu
The stakes of any writing, whether they are pictorial or textual in nature, are without exception generated from the susceptible spaces in which their appearances unfold. The surface of any material is always a susceptible surface to traces: it exists only when receiving traces; to wit, it emerges out of summons and inducements.
—Marc Le Bot, Images du corps
In his book Images du corps, Marc Le Bot scrutinized several contemporary artists’ works, and thereby discovered the connections between the body and the art of painting. He claimed that art not only emerges amidst artists’ practices and material shaping, but also serves as the projection of artists’ body images. Accordingly, art is a process in which the body searches for its carrier, if you will. This claim clearly reflects some essential aspects of contemporary aesthetics. On a more specific basis, contemporary art focuses not so much on manipulating materials, forms, colors, spaces, and shapes as on catalyzing the unpredictable contingency generated in the collective influence of artists’ frame of mind and their physical labor on materials throughout the creative process. In this way, contemporary art opens up a sensible field that allows physical senses to intervene in and therefore transcends the confines of vision. Contemporary art further turns artworks into the carriers of the traces of every stripe left by the body and the mind, from which the unique and susceptible signatures of artists can be detected.
In other words, materials and forms must transcend themselves so that they can establish closer and stronger connections with artists and even with the real world. This is an essential prerequisite for creating contemporary artworks. In the joint exhibition Subsurface Inclination to be on view at Kalos Gallery between 5 September and 3 October, the two Taiwanese artists par excellence and their works, namely Hsu YungHsu’s ceramics and Mia Wen-Hsuan Liu’s paper sculpture, coincidently illustrate this significant aspect. Their works are designed not so much to present the features of materials and forms as to embody the physical labor, mental activity, and will power that the artists devoted to the creative process. They open up a poetic sensible field that brims with visual appeal and a profound sense of corporeality.
Hsu YungHsu: Clay as the material
Hsu is a world renowned contemporary artist for his awe-inspiring ceramic works. He won the first prize of the 8th International Ceramics Competition Mino, Japan, which is one of the most prestigious ceramics competitions in the world. Creating ceramic art, he nevertheless treats “anti-ceramics” as the underlying philosophy of his creative practices. Adopting complex and painstaking procedures of creation, the artist devoted his monotonous effort of pressing, kneading, and rubbing to transforming the slim and graceful ceramic pieces into extraordinarily large ceramic works that convey an astonishing beauty after being refined by kilning. Every step and movement that Hsu took in the creative process not only extended, challenged, and transcended the intrinsic limitations of the material, but also served as the real test to his own creative will. Risking collapsing or bursting into pieces, the artist accepted the natural deformation of his works, in which he deliberately embedded the constant rhythm of his long-term physical labor.
Mia Wen-Hsuan Liu: Paper as the material
Liu is a budding artist who has attracted considerable attention and won the Kaohsiung Awards in 2009. Paper is the primary material for her creative practices. She firstly cut the sheets of paper according to her design, and then made these pieces of paper three-dimensional by folding and rolling them. Finally, she arranged these pieces of paper in a dense manner so as to create masses and indicate directions. Meanwhile, the artist tended to paint something on these pieces of paper and thereby produced the effect of colorful illumination, or included kinetic installation that brought a sense of brisk or tranquil flow. The viewers’ vision may fade away with the interconnection among other senses, and their senses may ultimately arouse an indescribable sentiment. Constant repetition of identical movement is a prerequisite for Liu’s works, since her creative process entails meticulous and complicated efforts. Despite the arduous physical labor, the curved, spiraled, and rising parts of Liu’s works serve as the inner sustenance for the artist’s subtle feelings.
Hsu adopts porcelain clay as the creative material, while Liu adopts paper. Nonetheless, the two artists who belong to different generations and adopt different materials surprisingly employ similar artistic vocabulary in their creative practices. Their works coincidently juxtapose simplicity and complexity, beneath which a breath-like or dance-like poetic rhythm unfolds. This unique, aesthetically pleasing feature of their works derives exactly from the artists’ constant struggle with the materials they adopt, a process in which they set their mind and will free. Subsurface Inclination: Joint Exhibition by Hsu Yunghsu and Mia Wen-Hsuan Liu is going to present the latest tours de force by the two artists that may have many resonances for the viewers. We sincerely invite you to this elaborately organized exhibition, where you can immerse yourself in the fantastic world created by the two gifted artists.
