Tang Jo-Hung acquired his M.A. in Arts at Salamanca University in Spain and his B.A. in the Department of Fine Arts at Tunghai University. His experiences in these schools established the foundations of his creative philosophy, which sees creation as a response to life and a search for a way out for life. Everything just fell into place naturally, and painting became his means for the pursuit of excellence and the only way for him to create and exercise the Self. According to Tang, it is not his intention to carry the weight of the history in his works. The formation of his cultural identity and aesthetics feeds on the nutrients provided by both the life experiences in the west and in the east without any intentional selections.
However, we can still perceive the eventful and hard-to-digest historical legacy in his paintings. He did not play on the theme of orientalism, but the context of his paintings looks like that in an ink and wash landscape. He did not aim at European glamour, but the readers perceive complicated patterns that remind one of a classical opera. He was not thinking Cubism or Expressionism, but sitting on the table behind Cookey is a landscape that looks similar to one found in a Cubism painting (Note4). His organic strokes and angular structures form the whole perspective of a painting and the Self. He wanted to come back to the humbleness and candidness of a novice. However, his mature skills imbue his fluent strokes with a sense of simplicity and the steady pace with a rush of impulse, and thus give his paintings the power to conquer the eyes of many intellectual viewers.
