Lin & Lin Gallery is pleased to present the solo exhibition Kuo Wei-Kuo in May, presenting the latest works of the artist. Kuo Wei-Kuo's art touches on the inner and outer spirit and perception from his own perspective, using a comprehensive painting technique to express a unique artistic vocabulary that is deeply rooted in stream-of-consciousness forms. The themes and subjects of his works are highly recognisable, yet not confined to the medium of painting, and he is able to perpetually create different looks. Each work seems to be a revelation of the transient truths of fragile tranquillity, which is the artist's fondness for life and the gesture of affirming everything that comes to him.
In his new works, Kuo skillfully transforms memories, fragments of feelings, and emotional experiences in real life, and he combines his understanding of classical painting to reorganise different graphic elements in the paintings. Ultimately, these elements, either figurative or abstract, develop into a fantastical pictorial illusion.
'The theme of this series is a metaphor of my own emotion and desire for painted images, which contain the sum of artistic, living, political, social, and personal ideologies, and the pursuit of the ultimate value of creation.'
—Kuo Wei-Kuo
The various media used in the works, as well as the texture that emerges through the process of repeated painting, scraping, and splashing, are like the traces of the past, or old scars, stacked and peeled on the surface of painting with a poetic appearance. The spatial attribute of alienation, the apocalypse-like pallor, and loneliness are depicted in a somewhat indifferent manner.
As for Kuo, painting is a process of inner sorting and observation; moreover, it is close to an instinctive belief. When re-analysing and re-questioning his works, 'emotional consciousness' becomes the theme of his paintings. The endless wandering in a series of self-revelation, bloomed flesh and vessels, suspended hearts, floating characters, tadpole-like tissues, mutilated limbs, even the fragments from previous works, all seem to be connected to this long creative process, and continue to tell the story of himself, whispering on and on.
Biography of the artist
Kuo Wei-Kuo, born in Taipei, 1960, graduated with an M.F.A from Taipei National University of the Art, Taipei, Taiwan. He co-founded the Taipei Painting School in 1985, and since then, he has participated actively in Taiwan's modern art movement. In 1994 and 1996, his works were shown in the Biennale at Taipei Fine Arts Museum. In 1998, Kuo co-founded the Hantoo Art Group and was the first chairman. His works have been exhibited in New York, Paris, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Seoul, Gwangji, Beijing, and Chongqing, and he has also held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Today Art Museum, Beijing, and Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei. His works have received international attention and support and have been collected by several important art institutions in Taiwan, such as Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Hong-Gah Museum, Dimension Endowment of Arts, Catcher Educational Foundation, and Kuo Mu Sheng Foundation. Kuo was awarded the eighth Modern Painting Award from Li Zhongsheng Foundation in 2004. In 2005, he was awarded the fifth Liao Chi-Chun Fund of Taipei Culture Foundation.
Press release courtesy Lin & Lin Gallery.
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