HILO CHEN

With realistic painting, appreciation is often based on how precisely a work imitates and represents its real object sources. With this in mind, the discourse surrounding artists that produce works in a realistic turn is centered on the appearance of said works. In contrast, in Chen’s early paintings, we are able to discover a new means of approaching realism. What we see has the potential to become a symbol of his unique pursuit of aesthetics built around his lived experiences or personal relationships, both physical and psychological.

Before leaving Taiwan, Chen was certain he would devote himself to portraiture, having gradually relinquished his studies in abstraction. In the last Ton Fan Group exhibition in 1967, Chen showed only one painting, that of a grey, blue eye, which belonged to his French girlfriend. He later met another Taiwanese artist, Peng WanChih, in Paris and found, inextricably, that they were both eager to paint eyes or people with eyes. “As an Easterner who has come to the West, it is my desire to know the world or even see through it. That is why my later realistic paintings are not about merely a person with a pair of eyes. They are more to do with how these eyes perceive the people and world around them” Chen said.

In the exhibition, many works were rediscovered by the artist in his studio during the pandemic. These are significant works that represent a transformative stage in Chen’s work; figures with unusual eyes resonate with Peng’s portraiture. Among them, a portrait of Chin Sung, a Taiwanese artist who lived in New York, also leads us to see, to understand, and to feel the histories and the traces of how these Taiwanese artists abroad expanded their own aesthetic and visual language at this integral time.

In the aftermath of a pandemic which has inhibited our contact with one another, our strong desire to connect to the world remains. Just like the ambiguous distance in Chen’s grand painting of a female standing on a hill, we desire for her to meet our gaze, to turn her head in our direction to perceive us as we are, as do so many of Chen’s other early works. “Hilo Chen: Eyes” offers an invaluable moment to contemplate, to look at those around us and to comprehend the artist once again.