Wu Chi-Tsung

Early Life

Born in Taipei, Wu trained in calligraphy, drawing, ink painting, and watercolour at the Taipei National University of the Arts, graduating with a BFA in 2004. Wu first showed in the U.K. in 2013, sponsored by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture as part of a partnership program with the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester.

Wu Chi-Tsung’s Artworks

Wu Chi-Tsung’s wrinkled landscapes borrow from contemporary techniques to achieve their signature style, retaining elements of traditional Chinese art forms in material and aesthetic.

Wrinkled Texture

Wu Chi-Tsung’s ‘Wrinkled Texture’ series reinterprets Cun Fa, a traditional texturing method in Chinese landscape (Shan Shui) painting. Instead of using the traditional ink and brush, however, Wu uses cyanotypes, a photographic process that results in a signature shade of blue. In Wrinkled Texture 109 (2021), a cyanotype on Xuan paper, dancing waters come to life across varying folds that emerge from the rice paper’s surface, creating soft waves that reflect light and motion.

Cyano-Collages

Wu Chi-Tsung’s ‘Cyano-Collage’ (2015–ongoing) series followed. To make these, the artist soaked Xuan paper in a photosensitive solution before exposing it to sunlight and crumpling the paper into varying shapes. The resulting image is marked with wrinkles and folds, retaining at once a record of light, time, and gesture.

Cyano-Collage 089 (2021), for instance, a cyanotype showing a portrait view of a highly textured mountain rendered a deep blue, strongly evokes The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1831), the iconic woodblock print by Hokusai. At the same time, a certain softness is retained in Wu’s paintings, the fine texture of the Xuan paper acting as a neutral backdrop to the wrinkled mountains.

Installations

The same concern with light can be found in Wu Chi-Tsung’s installations like ‘Crystal City’ (2009–2019), a series of large-scale light installations that filled dark rooms with translucent geometric shapes made from LED and plastic, replicating eerie electronic utopias.

Wastelands (2013), a successor to the first light installation, offered a dystopian alternative with entire rooms submerged in plastic waste—an ode to pollution and the realities we cannot escape.

Awards

Wu Chi-Tsung has been the recipient of many awards, including the Liu Kuo Sung Ink Art Award (2019), the Award of Critics and Editors of Art Magazines from WRO Media Art Biannual (2013), and the Taipei Arts Award (2003).

Gallery

On Ocula, Wu Chi-Tsung is represented by Sean Kelly in New York and Taipei.

Exhibitions

Wu Chi-Tsung has exhibited widely across Taiwan and China.

Select solo exhibitions include Wu Chi-Tsung – Exposé, Galerie du Monde, Hong Kong (2021); Echo, Galerie du Monde at MAK7 Studio, Taipei (2019); Wu Chi-Tsung Solo Exhibition, Art Basel Hong Kong (2018); Far from East, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2017); Recalibrate, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester (2013); and Wu Chi-Tsung Solo Exhibition, TKG+, Taipei (2012).

Selected group exhibitions include Meridians, Art Basel Miami Beach (2019); Abstract by Nature, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (2019); and Lightscapes: Re-envisioning the Shanshuihua, Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles (2019).

Website

The artist’s website can be found here.

Articles

The artist has been written on by various reputable publications, including Art Asia Pacific.

Elaine YJ Zheng | Ocula | 2021