Yi-Chen HUNG (1971-2011) studied from 1991 until 2002 in the United Kingdom for her BA until PhD in Fine Art. She returned to Taiwan in 2004, where she held a full-time teaching position while preparing for her first solo exhibition in 2007 at IT Park in Taiwan, where she quickly caught the attention from the art community. Between 2007 and 2010, she completed five solo exhibitions with fiery passion and intense creative energy, including a large-scale solo exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2009. HUNG was originally invited in early 2011 for an exhibition at ESLITE GALLERY, which she looked forward to but fate was unfortunate and she suddenly passed away on April 5th, 2011 in her studio. It is with her family’s permission as well as curator Chia Chi Jason WANG’s assistance that this exhibition has been realized as she had planned.

“Transgress and Reclaim” refers to the curator’s analysis and conclusion for HUNG’s works since 1997. “Transgress” refers to the artist’s need to update and create “painting” - to go beyond daring yet not destructive towards this medium. She had already been developing alternative insights to painting while still studying her MA from the Royal College of Art in the United Kingdom, trying to breakthrough the limitations of merely creating manifestations or re-presentations on the canvas. After 1999, based on her foundation in easel painting, she started to reconstruct the relationship between the canvas, paint and frame, rearranging the different elements by both deconstructing a painting in terms of its physical framework as well as extending the conceptual spatial structure. Ever since then, her paintings were no longer limited to the flat canvas, but opened into another degree of three-dimensionality that can also be considered architectonic.

After HUNG returned to Taiwan, in addition to the dismantling and reconstruction of the canvas, pigments, and structural frame, she began to experiment on “replication” from a new perspective towards painting so as to discuss the “essence” of art. First, using fiberglass (FRP) as a material, she copied her own canvas works and juxtaposed them with the “original.” By doing so, she challenged the visual ability of viewers to distinguish between the original and replica. By 2010, she was able to mold acrylic paint to “re-present” the surface and texture of canvas, and then transplanted the layer of paint upon the canvas. To HUNG, “replication” is not about mass production, but an expression of pure concept that is not only deemed as original, but infused with more meaning because of its philosophical nature. In this instance, “Reclaim” stresses HUNG’s ultimate concern in the relentless questioning of the nature of artistic creation, exploration, and rules.

“Transgress and Reclaim: Yi-Chen HUNG, Selected Works 1994 – 2011” organizes many of HUNG’s works that she held onto before passing away. In addition to her works created after her return to Taiwan, there will also be a small portion of works from her student years spent in the United Kingdom. The earliest work in the exhibition is dated 1994 when she was a college student, and the latest are three works from March 2011, which were already sent to the factory for manufacturing before she passed away. While this is not a complete retrospective, the exhibition provides enough on view for us to have a glimpse of HUNG’s creative trajectory and context to confirm her excellent and outstanding artistic achievements, however brief.