Victoria Lu
Shih Yung Chun, was born in 1978 in Taipei, is going to have his personal exhibition in 798 Line Gallery in Beijing from October 20 to November 28 this year. He has named his own exhibition as “Soap Opera” and will display his 62 pieces of works to China. This exhibition not only means a lot to him, but is also a great opportunity for art lovers.
When I recall how I met Shih, it was so dramatic just like a soap opera. Shih was attending “Geisai Taiwan# 3”Art Festival sponsored by Takashi Tamiya and Taikai in Dec 2011 and I was one of the referees. With just one glance of Shih’s work, I liked it already. He also won the highest votes and got the Award of Taikai. However, there was one young artist who was awarded for none got so mad and threw tantrum on people who supported Shih and also his booth and questioned the result was cheated after the award was announced. Shih was shocked and unable to response. That was his first time to see this young artist. Without any evidence, Shih was humiliated by a stranger and was attached by him on the web continuously. Since I was so impressed by Shih’s talents, I tried to understand Shih’s background and his development history. I was very sure he deserved the award and represented as the referees to claim and supported this result. The whole drama left me a very unforgettable impression about Shih. When I was planning my own exhibition, “The pass to the future”, I needed some exhibits since the destination is Beijing. I thought of Shi and asked his to join the exhibition to show my encouragement and admiration to him.
Shih was graduated from Western Painting of Fine Arts of National Taiwan University of Arts and have been doing arts work from 2002. His deep-rooted painting experiences have helped him to grow stably and firmly. It is a pity that Conceptual art has been more popular in Taiwan’s contemporary arts. Young people are seeking for Installation Art and are not willing to calm and paint. Shih is very unlike the others.With this rare talent, Shih has been walking on the edge of the art. But his life is full of joy. He used his camera to record every single day’s life even though sometimes things seem so dull and usual. He scrawled every little feeling of his on old books and his notebook. All of these have accumulated a lot of painting materials and he didn’t even notice it. He re-captured the glance from these old pictures, old books, and old notebooks and weaved his old everyday life into ridiculous, hilarious, and thrills soap operas. He expressed his inner scare, illusion, and complaints in his paintings. Within the process of painting, he has turned himself into an actor who has played a person beyond himself. His art exceeds the limitation and frames where in the reality, people are hard to do so. Shih seems to live more colorful in that virtual world and it is full of surprising satisfactions.
These 62 pieces of work in Beijing include four series, “Life Demonstration”, “Daily Rules”, “Reading Habits”, and “Private Home’s Life Plan”. Even though each of the series is accompanied with a theme, the painting skills are somehow traceable with his style. What he is really good at and makes him different from others is his expression about being helpless about time passing. He has presented his 3D ideas in a 2D construction. He also used different painting skills to create a fourth dimension imagination, such as wiping, patching,smudging,and polishing…etc. He purposely chose to dig out the deep scare in human’s minds and many unsure memories instead of beautiful reality presentation. He tried to describe unclearly hidden in every single person’s nightmare and dreams which are so clear but so far away, so hard to remember and uncontrollable.Shih’s paintings are the expression of dreams alike, which is more closed to the dream’s interpretation than the surrealism artists from last century. They seem dull but actually are surprisingly dramatic. They seem like making no sense but actually are with suspicion like mystery scary movies. Life Demonstration series describes Shih’s daily trivia which may seem boring but are hidden with his own interpretations, especially for something that do not make sense but people usually ignore.Life Demonstration – Pony Tail, expresses the little details by means of a ruler held by a woman for her tail length instead of simply describing it.
“Daily Rules” series is a sub line of Life Demonstration, which is now displayed in Beijing. Obviously, Shih is expressing his unique sense of humor by all these works. For example, “Daily Rules Q – The Indoor Football Table”, is a strange space, which seems to be a classroom but actually an arcade. All people inside are like robots controlled by the players. “Daily Rules O – The Theater”, was supposed to be a dark space for people watching movies. With the sudden light up, you can see a whole bunch of boring audience squatting on the floor holding their heads and refuse to participate. “Daily Rules Z – Sightseeing”, is also another meaningful piece of work. In a normal Sushi restaurant, you can see the scene while only happens in sightseeing on the sushi trail. “Daily Rules T – The Rush Hours After School”, has implied a loose-order progression by the cars in a static status. Shih’s used his unique view to express various ridiculous and strange lives and used painting as an exit to escape this reality. Things start to make sense but they were considered impossible in the beginning.
“Reading Habits” series expresses Shih’s daily reading behavior and also derived behaviors from reading. He’s combined the reading behavior and the book’s contents to reflect some little changes from his daily life and interpreting individually. “Reading Habits C – Interview”, shows two students sitting in front of the desk preparing for the tests. Their heads are cut off but still facing ten framed heads right in front of them. “Reading Habits B”, is even weirder. The scrapping wooden chairs are surrounded by open books with two legs without the corps, and the head is floating in the air. “Reading Habits E – 3D Book”, has combined the readers the 3D book together. “Reading Habits F – Reading Buddy”, has the reader hidden behind the dog’s head which has turned normal people’s visual habits. All of these are very Shih style.
“Private Home’s Life Plan” is the newest developed series. Shih’s put some strangers’ private field and their life pictures and made them become the leads of the picture. Since this is a new try-out through the interaction through strangers, we only exhibit one piece, “Private Home’s Life Plan – 001”. A girl who is working for apparel design facing to the dummy has not noticed any weird things happening around her at all.
Although Shih’s paintings focus on daily life’s materials, he has turned the dull to the full from thousands of pictures. He always purposely makes the changes between the feelings of distant and strange, which has made people want to dig out the truth and at the same time, feeling surprised. However, truths are not in Shih’s paintings. He has named his works as “soap opera” as meaning that even our everyday life can be untrue and virtual. As being a talented painting artist, Shi has faced a repositioning moment after 40 years of Conceptual Art lead. Shih’s art, on the other hand, is very attractive and unique. He is a person who is good at telling stories. Every of his design work seems implying us that we are living in a “Maze”. Our life is just like a maze with dramatic process and hard to tell true or untrue. There is no one can get it clear. A scare of seeking for the truth while living in an untrue world – this may be Shih’s motivation and also the reason why he is so trapped down in this creation.
