Within the artistic arena the works of artists have invariably sought to represent or replace something that is absent. Whether the animals depicted in the Lascaux cave paintings, statues of Gods from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece or idols of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, if what is re-presented is not present or unable to be present, then the function of art becomes to fill the gap left by that absence. Henceforth, art no longer existed to represent something absent, moved away from re-presentation and focused instead on its own absolute existence. The question is whether, in the world of contemporary art, there exists a non re-presentational method that can be used to once again infuse art with a sense of something that is absent or unable to be present? This is the proposition and focus around which the current exhibition is organized.

In the new works of young artists Shiu Sheng-hung and Tsai Yu-ting, their non re-presentational approach successfully reintroduces a sense of something having disappeared or not being present to the realm of art. Under the guiding hand of Shiu Sheng-hung, this commercial device becomes a way of depicting real world content despite its absence. It takes images that are vehicles for reminiscences and memories and presents them as QR Code and then in a method that is reminiscent of hard-edged geometry painting uses the comparison of different shades of white to paint QR Code directly onto the canvas. Tsai Yu-ting covers discarded toys she has collected with white adhesive, which once it has dried is stripped away, transforming these remnants of childhood years and valued childhood memories into white “soft sculptures.” She calls these toy molds “ghosts” because each one carries with it a time of joy and happiness that has long since disappeared. Tsai uses these “ghosts” and traditional paper clay cinematographic frame-by-frame production, editing and connecting them so that they once again present absent joy and laughter in an artistic arena.

These two artists use shades of white which approximate to disappearing, each one symbolizing different types of not being present. Nou Gallery this time cooperates with Chen Hung-hsing, curating the exhibition “That-Has-Been” double solo exhibition, for displaying two Kaohsiung Awards winners, Hsu Sheng-hung and Tsai Yu-ting’s latest works, bring a whole new artistic concepts and creations into the contemporary art scene of Taiwan.

Courtesy of Nou Gallery