Sung-Chih Chen was born in Taiwan in 1978. Chen’s works explore the relationship between texture and aesthetics, and the binary opposition and relation of “daily / art” and “construction/ destruction”. The artist utilizes ready-made objects from his everyday life to installations through random collage and assemblage, in which the viewers can re-articulate the essence and relation between object and space. Through Chen’s self-reflection and own opinions towards society and socio-historical issues, his works highlight the critiques and emotions from the general mass towards the environment that combines with rational technology and sensational arts.

Undercover is an exhibition of “Spirit of Travel – Espace Louis Vuitton Taipei: Open Call for Emerging Artists 2013”. The rapid changes and urban construction in the contemporary world, as well as the corruption by the civilized human being, has aroused the artist’s interest to observe the delicate objects. Chen realized that human being should pay more attention to the footprint of time and substance in this consumer world. Travelling to-and-fro in various spaces, Chen collected wooden fragments that represent the surviving journey of the material, on which marked the trace of different space and time.

Sung-Chih Chen creates a poetic and contemporary space with found wooden fragments. He elaborates the abstraction and minimalism with exquisite style. Audience will discover the essential beauty of the material as well as the alienation imposed by the constituted space from a far to near distance. The imagination of the scene, the depiction, the journey of creation and the transition of the space remind the audience to appreciate the ordinary details, memories and our everyday life. Chen transforms the ordinary to texture, rhythmic, extensive and layering installation, in which density and perspective creates the sensitive touch of beauty and the opacity of the reality, albeit it might be the “delicate sensibilities”.

"Spirit of Travel: Espace Louis Vuitton Taipei: Open Call for Emerging Artists 2013” was jointly organized by Louis Vuitton Taiwan and Dimension Endowment of Art. The panel of judges had held chosen Sung-Chih Chen as the First Prize.

Image: © Espace Louis Vuitton Taipei