JASON CHI

-Chen Kuang-Yi, Director of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

Tina Keng Gallery is pleased to present Perplexity, Jason Chi’s latest solo exhibition. Comprising his recent body of work, Perplexity conveys a sense of confusion and bewilderment experienced in difficult situations. The artist constructs orderly lines on the canvas to create depth, with vibrant colors and textures that render each brushstroke a lingering mark of emotion. If minimalist abstraction is his artistic vocabulary, the exploration of space, time, and life is his recurring motif. Perplexity emerges as a meditation on contemporary life, intuitively shaped by this creative approach.

Born in Taichung, Taiwan, Chi has lived in the United States, studied in Italy, and traveled the world. With two degrees in architecture and fine arts, he has worked across various disciplines from design, painting, to curating. Ultimately, he chose to return to his homeland. He has taken on teaching, started businesses, and engaged in initiatives to help others. Despite his diverse experiences, the key to Chi’s identity as an artist lies in his constant exploration and self-validation through art making. His work delineates changes of the universe on a macro level, articulating the abstract perception of idea and emotion. It is, on the other hand, concrete, as his work stems from the minutiae of everyday life. These personal experiences translate into order and freedom found on his canvas, conjuring the artist’s sense of self, while giving rise to confusion: the complexity of harmony and detachment following the interaction between the individual and their environment — this is the intricate emotion Perplexity aims to evoke.

As the viewer enters the exhibition, they follow clues from the titles of the works, such as The Edge of Time, Traces of Thought, Rejuvenating Forest, and Ideal New World, to ponder how the artist channels the ephemeral aspects of the everyday into an abstract representation of thought and emotion. As the viewer gazes at the works, the abstract intent transforms into brushstrokes, allowing them to perceive the material depth of each painting: those light, gossamer layers gently stacked — dripped, poured, scraped, dry-brushed, thinly painted, thickly applied.

The forms are ever-changing, ranging from dots and lines to various organic shapes found in nature or geometric forms, along with a variety of elaborate brushstrokes that interweave and layer across the canvas in a nuanced, subdued manner. The “Intuitive” series, for instance, appears nearly monochromatic from a distance, shrouded in a minimalist gray, yet reveals a complex interplay of entangled layers upon closer inspection. These layers constantly advance, retreat, and interlace on the two-dimensional canvas, creating a multidimensional, otherworldly space.

Chi’s exceptional sense of colour, along with his profound knowledge and mastery of hues, imbues his work with a singular palette that transports the viewer away from reality. When vision intertwines with other senses, the atmosphere of the painting envelops the viewer, culminating in an ineffable sensation.

From the artist’s spirituality to the material expression in his painting, as a 21st-century abstract painter, Chi shapes his identity as an artist through art making. He insists on viewing this evermore challenging world through abstract form, seeking a refuge amidst the fleeting nature of phenomena. With this heightened awareness of the inner and outer worlds, eternal inquiry, and unceasing articulation, Jason Chi’s work continues to reverberate with measured significance.