After a four-year hiatus, renowned ink painter Wu Shih-Wei marks his long-awaited return to the arts scene with an exhibition of his forty-one new works at Wistaria Tea House, continuing a longstanding friendship between the artist and Wistaria.
Sight Beyond Sight: Ink Paintings by Wu Shih-Wei will display a variety of works related to the ink painting genre, including immense four-piece screens, scroll paintings, fans, two-sided paintings, and miniature paintings, whose creative juxtaposition of paint and frame will doubtlessly delight the sight.
Wu’s meticulous strokes, masterful use of ink, and elegant colour palette express an astonishing harmony of content and form, of an enchanting and detailed world of natural beauty. An ethos of elegance and vivacity permeate Wu’s art, a sentiment reinforced by the artist’s fluid and lively strokes. They also encapsulate the philosophy of harmony among myriad beings across myriad temporalities – universal harmony.
At over sixty years of age, Wu considers this exhibition to be a turning point in his ink painting journey: it marks a return to a more naturalistic aesthetics, to a purer pursuit of nature and simplicity. It is also a celebration of the artist’s extensive friendship with Wistaria, with whom he feels an artistic and cultural affinity. The decision to hold this exhibition at Wistaria, then, feels quite natural.
Come, and enjoy Sight Beyond Sight at Wistaria, among the harmonious poetry of Wu’s elegant flora.
Mountains at dawn, tranquil in their deep green hues At sunrise, they turn emerald green After sunset, the mountains are black Foggy mornings, the mountains wear delicate green veils After snowfall, the mountains are calm and white, markedly different
Only those who truly love mountains can feel their pulse, and the plenitude they contain… Sense the mountains' myriad emotions and qualities, appreciate their diverse hues and appearances
Humans gather resources from mountains, as well as spiritual consolation – mountains are our mothers and our homes
The mountains' kaleidoscopic manifestations enrich the artist’s imagination of home They remind us to cherish our mothers – our mountains. Lee Ming-Sheng Trans.: Lo-Ching Chow
Time and Timelessness is an artistic project by renowned artist Lee Ming-sheng. Consisting of numerous photographs portraying 106 contemporary Taiwanese artists “at work,” the project is the culmination of four years of dedicated and meticulous artistic documentation. Utilizing photography and microfilm technologies, the artists’ acts and actions are captured on photographic film and subsequently converted into microfilm. By projecting the artists’ daily acts and actions onto the screen through the medium of light, the project evokes a sense of time inherent in the artistic process: each microfilm transcends its status as a mere snapshot in time, becoming a microcosm of an artistic era. Each microfilm not only captures the material and mechanical considerations of the artistic process, but also conveys the aesthetic zeitgeist of the time: its philosophy, vision, style, and spirit. In a sense, Lee’s exhibition reconfigures, re-contextualizes, and represents a history of Taiwanese art that locates and localizes itself in human beings – in us.
Despite being circumscribed by the physical limitations of one’s vision, like a pupil encircled by the iris of one’s eye, the artist’s gaze nevertheless projects a transcendent vision of the artistic environment of the times. This perspective, interweaving the phenomena of light and time, highlights the fluidity of art: of art in the act, of creation in action. The art is both happening in the now as well as advancing along the horizon of time. This scrutiny of the visual and the temporal points to the “present” present in the notion of “representation”: to the presence of life intertwined with the motion of time. It affirms the meaningful reality of the present, thereby rejecting the nihilistic dismissal of the present as superficial transience.
Time and Timelessness will be the first of an “artistic relay” of solo exhibitions held at Wistaria in 2020. It will be followed by Lee Min-Sheng’s 70th anniversary exhibition: Mountains of Maternity, which in turn will precede a series of two-week solo exhibitions by artists portrayed in Time and Timelessness. The works, situated in Wistaria’s exhibition space and tea rooms, invite viewers to engage in visual dialogue with the artists. What kind of vision will the encounter of the gazes project? What new projects will the interaction inspire?
What will this project, one bounded by physical and temporal boundaries of the Lee’s human existence, and yet capturing his contemporaries’ artistic zeitgeist, bring to light at Wistaria?
Time and Timelessness is an artistic project by renowned artist Lee Ming-sheng. Consisting of numerous photographs portraying 106 contemporary Taiwanese artists “at work,” the project is the culmination of four years of dedicated and meticulous artistic documentation. Utilizing photography and microfilm technologies, the artists’ acts and actions are captured on photographic film and subsequently converted into microfilm. By projecting the artists’ daily acts and actions onto the screen through the medium of light, the project evokes a sense of time inherent in the artistic process: each microfilm transcends its status as a mere snapshot in time, becoming a microcosm of an artistic era. Each microfilm not only captures the material and mechanical considerations of the artistic process, but also conveys the aesthetic zeitgeist of the time: its philosophy, vision, style, and spirit. In a sense, Lee’s exhibition reconfigures, re-contextualizes, and represents a history of Taiwanese art that locates and localizes itself in human beings – in us.
Despite being circumscribed by the physical limitations of one’s vision, like a pupil encircled by the iris of one’s eye, the artist’s gaze nevertheless projects a transcendent vision of the artistic environment of the times. This perspective, interweaving the phenomena of light and time, highlights the fluidity of art: of art in the act, of creation in action. The art is both happening in the now as well as advancing along the horizon of time. This scrutiny of the visual and the temporal points to the “present” present in the notion of “representation”: to the presence of life intertwined with the motion of time. It affirms the meaningful reality of the present, thereby rejecting the nihilistic dismissal of the present as superficial transience.
Time and Timelessness will be the first of an “artistic relay” of solo exhibitions held at Wistaria in 2020. It will be followed by Lee Min-Sheng’s 70th anniversary exhibition: Mountains of Maternity, which in turn will precede a series of two-week solo exhibitions by artists portrayed in Time and Timelessness. The works, situated in Wistaria’s exhibition space and tea rooms, invite viewers to engage in visual dialogue with the artists. What kind of vision will the encounter of the gazes project? What new projects will the interaction inspire?
What will this project, one bounded by physical and temporal boundaries of the Lee’s human existence, and yet capturing his contemporaries’ artistic zeitgeist, bring to light at Wistaria?
