草稿:Chen Hsing-Wan

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Chen Hsing-Wan (1951-2004) was a modern artist born in Taichung, Taiwan. Her father, Taiwanese sculptor Chen Hsia-Yu, introduced her to the art world when she was a child. Later, out of her interest, she enrolled in the Division of Western-style Painting, Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Academy of Arts (now National Taiwan University of Arts) with the support from her parents’ old friend Li Mei-Shu. After graduating from the academy in 1972, she worked as a teacher for a short period of time before resigning and devoting herself to artistic creation. In 1981, she sat at the feet of Li Chun-Shan and applied automatism to mixed-media paintings, which marked a major turning point in her career as an artist. In her later works, the coloring shifted from bright and pale shades to strong and deep hues, combined with fabrics (e.g., gauze and linen), ready-mades, and ink.

Life

After graduating from the National Taiwan Academy of Arts in 1972, Chen Hsing-Wan taught at Sanzhi Junior High School in Taipei County (now New Taipei City), Taichung Municipal Si-Yuan Junior High School, and Wu-Qi Junior High School in Taichung County. In that period, she married artist Cheng Yen-Ping, her classmate at the academy. In 1979, she resigned from the teaching post to concentrate on artistic creation, and meanwhile engaged in arts education for children. In 1981, she was mentored and inspired by Li Chun-Shan, who prompted her to apply automatism to mixed-media paintings, which represented a crucial turning point in her career as an artist. In 1984, Chen won the honors of the first New Horizons Award and the third prize for abstract painting conferred by Taipei Fine Arts Museum, which earned her recognition by the modern art circle in Taiwan. From 1985 onwards, Chen shuttled between Taiwan and different countries for reasons of creating her works. In 1992, she acquired a French ten-year residence permit and thenceforth settled in Pairs. She divorced Cheng Yen-Ping in 1996 and died of breast cancer in France in 2004.

Works

    Chen engaged in abstract art after graduating from the academy in 1972, using paint to create large color blocks in simple and strong shades. Unfortunately, few of these works have been preserved to date.

    From 1970 to 1984, she tried to create mixed-media works that either feature the composition of large-area coloring and imbricated blocks, or emphasize the layering of colors and the expression of brushstrokes.

    In 1981, she sat at the feet of Li Chun-Shan and began to experiment with automatism. She employed acrylic paints in combination with wooden planks, strips of cloth, gesso, and mounting techniques in her large-scale works. For example, Artwork 8419 (1984) was created with semi-automatism using acrylic paints, wooden planks, newspaper, gesso, and canvas mounted on wood.

    Chen’s works created between 1985 and 1989 shifted from bright and pale shades to strong and deep hues in terms of coloring, combined with fabrics like gauze and linen. From 1990 to 2004, she attempted to integrate ink-wash painting techniques into her works. After 1993, she simplified the coloring in her works by confining them to tones of red, black, and white. For example, her mixed-media work Red Landscape (1993) comprises red and black colors, while War and Peace No. 2 (1995) is one of her magnum opuses made of processed fabrics in red and black. Around 2000, she created a series of ink-wash works based on her inner feelings, such as Dream, Hope, and Death (2000).

Exhibitions

    As early as 1975, Chen Hsing-Wan and Taiwanese painter Chen Shih-Hsing from the younger generation founded the Summer Painting Society and held a joint exhibition at Taiwan Provincial Museum. Since 1984, she had actively staged solo exhibitions and participated in joint exhibitions at home and abroad, and had received several modern art awards for her works.

    In 1984, Chen made her solo exhibition debut at the Taipei-based One Gallery, and presented her work in Taiwan’s first installation art exhibition titled “Alien: Play of Space” hosted by the Spring Art Gallery in Taipei. In 1985, she embarked on a study tour in France. What she experienced and learned during the tour had left a deep impression on her about European Neo-expressionism. In 1987, she returned to Taiwan and staged solo exhibitions at the Lung Men Art Gallery and the Taiwan Provincial Museum of Fine Arts. In 1990, she worked as an artist-in-residence in Basel, Switzerland via an international artist exchange program, where she experimented with the medium of ink-wash. In 1991, she presented her ink-wash works at the Masharbia Gallery in Cairo, Egypt. In 1992, she acquired a French ten-year residence permit and ergo shuttled between Paris and Taiwan for many years. She removed the frame of her works and transcended the rigid confines of rules in terms of composition. In 1995, she gained access to WWII archives and was emotionally stirred, hence the art series “War and Peace.” In 1996, she photographed a series of rotting carcasses of animals on a trip to the Egyptian desert. These photographs were displayed in her solo exhibition titled “From the Search of Prototypes to the Ode to the Earth” at Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1997. In 1999, Chen participated in the “Joint Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art” at the invitation of the Gierig Gallery in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In 2001, Chen suffered from iritis and started to practice Falun Gong. Her creative style thus evolved from complexity into simplicity. Also in 2001, she staged her solo exhibition titled “Time of Light Sculpture” at the Ke Yuan Gallery in Qingshui, Taichung. She presented her ink-wash works in 2002, yet her outputs gradually decreased thenceforth due to her physical conditions.

Awards

    Chen Hsing-Wan did not take part in any competitions during her enrolment at the National Taiwan Academy of Arts, because abstract painting was outside the mainstream of traditional major art competitions such as the Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition and the Tai Yang Art Exhibition.

    In 1984, she won the first New Horizons Award from Taipei Fine Arts Museum for her work 8411. The museum organized the competition with the aim of promoting the development of modern and contemporary art in Taiwan. Also in 1984, she won the third prize in the first Abstract Painting Competition held by Taipei Fine Arts Museum. These laurels greatly encouraged Chen and motivated her to undertake a study tour in France.

    In 1989, Chen won the Creativity Prize of the first Li Chun-Shan Foundation Modern Painting Awards.

Year	Awards
1984	The first New Horizons Award, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
1984	The third prize in the first Abstract Painting Competition, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
1989	The Creativity Prize of the first Li Chun-Shan Foundation Modern Painting Awards
1991	One-year artist-in-residence in Paris, selected by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan
1995	Six-month artist-in-residence at the Headland Center for the Arts, San Francisco, the U.S., selected by the Council for Cultural Affairs