The half-real, half mythical civilization of India is a source of deep fascination for Taiwan artist Professor Hou Li Ren. Traveling to the India-Nepal region numerous times over the past two decades, the artist has drawn the subjects for his oil paintings from local scenes and daily life among the people. Their vivid, beautiful color and strong, natural brushwork produces works with a kind of deep and primal grandeur. Hou Li Ren, never a seeker after notoriety or wealth, has devoted the last 50-plus years of his life to teaching and painting, but finally, in 2009, he consented for the first time to a 70-year retrospective of his work in the Tainan Municipal Cultural Center. The 99 Degrees Art Center is now holding a simultaneously exhibition of Hou's work in Taipei and Shanghai.

Hou Li Ren was born in Chongqing in 1940 and graduated in 1962 from the Fine Arts Department of Taiwan Normal University. He has served as professor and director of the Fine Arts Department of Tainan University of Technology and on the selection committees of the Tainan Municipal Cultural Center and other cultural organizations. His works are collected at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. His early work explored various watercolor effects, retaining the medium's translucent character while projecting a naturally powerful but reserved beauty. Hou's later visits to India and Nepal, however, caused a shift in his creative work, adding to it a rich atmosphere of mystery through the use of strong contrasts of light and shade and a variety of brilliant but harmonious colors.

Hou has found spiritual accord with this country of India, with its multiplicity of languages, deities, and legends, documenting earthy scenes of its rural life and its pantheistic religious traditions. Temples, houses, animal gods, angry Buddhas, children sitting beside the road, girls in saris, elderly religious pilgrims…each of these subjects reflects Hou's admiration for the devoutness and patience of the Indian people and his thoughts on nature and life. The dark-toned hues of his paintings and his deep, humanitarian sympathy for the people reflects a certain worldview, which is that though the burden of life may be heavy, there always remains that enticing thread of tenderness and hope. These feelings are portrayed with remarkable vividness in the impressionistic paintings of Hou Li Ren.

- Fonda Hsu, Art Director