The Road Not Taken Ch.1

Mind Set Art Center has relocated to Heping E. Rd., Taipei early this February. We are delighted to present the Grand Opening Exhibition in the new space “The Road Not Taken” from 12 March to 14 The exhibition title “The Road Not Taken” is cited from the famous poem of the same title written by American poet Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963), and also refers to the book Holzwege by German philosopher Marth Heidegger (1889 – 1976). It reflects the rugged, lonely life path of artistic creation that is also full of unknown possibilities, where only one full of adventure, courage, and clear spirit could refine the scenes along the way into plenty fruits. The same could be said for art collecting and promotion.

“The Road Not Taken Ch.1” will present works by 11 artists born between the 1950s and 1980s in Taiwan, including SU Wong-shen, LEE Ming-tse, Juin SHIEH, LIN Chuan-Chu, SHI Jin-Hua, TANG Jo-Hung, Shiau-Peng CHEN, CHUNG Shun-Wen, Mia Wen-Hsuan LIU, JHONG Jiang-Ze, and LIN Wei-Hsiang, amongst which we are delighted to work with SU Wong-shen, CHUNG Shun-Wen, and LIN Wei-Hsiang for the first time. Most of the pieces to be shown are recent works.

LEE Ming-tse’s latest painting Still Life That Writes Calligraphy depicts a flourishing potted plant with brilliant colors, showing the vitality of life. The image was constructed exquisitely despite its impromptu appearance, presenting a feast for the eyes as well as for the heart. The brushstrokes in the background look like shadow of the branches while resembling calligraphy, implicating the plant having consciousness of its own. Surrounding the plant are other blossoms, creatures, tea set, vases in miniature scales, indicating the artist’s deep engagement with civil esthetics and culture of Taiwan while revealing a scholarly life style that appreciates the nature.

For the first appearance in Mind Set Art Center, SU Wong-shen will present a painting from 1998, Wind Rises. The small but thought-provoking painting depicts an imaginary stage of a beast and a doll with rich texture and dramatic atmosphere, implying the spectrum of the human society. Dwelling in the mountains of Meinlong in southern Taiwan, Chung Shun-Wen captures memories and fragments from her everyday life and refines them into heart-touching imagines. Nine pieces from her Daily Collecting series will be shown, in which the intimate relationship between human and nature is expressed through delicate depictions of vegetables.

SHI Jin-Hua will present his first drawing inspired by music, Lines of Music op.01, in which pencil lines dance on Xuan paper to form a composition that invokes experiences resembling to that of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, Opus 50 through the eyes. SHI also takes his Pen Walking series which began in 1994 to a new phase. In his new piece, Pen Walking #157, the artist took a tube of paint as the subject and exhausted the paint to form rich texture and powerful image on a canvas, leaving marks as the deeds one has performed in a lifetime.

Recent paintings by younger artists JHONG Jiang-Ze and LIN Wei-Hsiang are also the focal points of this exhibition. JHONG Jiang-Ze’s large scale painting Floral Spirit presents a fertile land with colorful plants among which a human-like figure is sitting. The colors are thriving but not chaotic. Within the frame, spaces overlap and stride across each other in which objects seem to have multiple meanings. The artist applied symmetrical composition of an altarpiece, giving this fantastic and unruly painting a touch of classical sanctity. On the other hand, LIN Wei-Hsiang carries out his landscape paintings in a persistent and time-consuming manner. Always placing himself in the nature, LIN expresses his contemplating between subject and object, visual and spiritual through his paintings. Commenced around the Dragon Boat Festival in 2014 and completed recently, the painting on show, Stroll (12), depicts a vast mountain view covered with drizzle. The artist applied thin layers of paint over and over on the canvas to create a spacious, charming and mystic landscape.