Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Symbolic Fairytale Portraits by Chang Chia-Ying

There's a new generation of Taiwanese artists remixing modern ideas into their artwork, stepping away from visual traditions. We see it in Lo Chan Peng’s frightening, fashionable muses (covered here), Liao Chi-yu's video art that references 17th century Dutch still life- and Chang Chia-Ying. Her Russian doll-like portraits of animals and chubby children stare into the distance with hollow, glazed over expressions on their faces. Likewise, the viewer is invited to look through them; their torsos are a window into an alternate reality. They are surrounded by mysterious fairytale gardens, inspired by the cartoons Chia-Ying watched as a child.

There’s a new generation of Taiwanese artists remixing modern ideas into their artwork, stepping away from visual traditions. We see it in Lo Chan Peng’s frightening, fashionable muses (covered here), Liao Chi-yu’s video art that references 17th century Dutch still life- and Chang Chia-Ying. Her Russian doll-like portraits of animals and chubby children stare into the distance with hollow, glazed over expressions on their faces. Likewise, the viewer is invited to look through them; their torsos are a window into an alternate reality. They are surrounded by mysterious fairytale gardens, inspired by the cartoons Chia-Ying watched as a child.

Her paintings exhibit a mixture of pop culture and culturally identifiable motifs such as Jiaolong, like a mermaid with a serpent’s tail, and Taiwanese rock monkeys, a symbol of versatility.  There is a religious ambiguity about them as well, representing her inner exploration sparked by new life experiences. In her own words, “My works reveal a short circuit situation. Why do I say that is a short circuit situation, that is because every single symbol in a work seems to have its own mission, is doing something, is performing its own story; but the stories are cut, they are not precisely connected, cannot be tagged with chronological order; the stories play according to observers’ thoughts. Cartoon art is flat, like a freeze-frame, there is not much to describe behind the frame, comparing to this lack of significance I pursue a polysemous significance.”

Meta
Topics
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
We live in strange times and artists Michael Kerbow and Mike Davis both have something in common: they use surrealism and time travel to address modern and existential issues. Click above to read the Hi-Fructose exclusive interviews with painters Mike Davis and Michael Kerbow about their respective solo showings.
Artist and animation director Joe Vaux paints what he likes. His personal work is teeming with impish demons. His cheerful hellscapes are populated with lost souls, sharp toothed monstrosities, and swarms of wrong-doers. And yet, there’s an innocence to all of this. Click to read the Hi-Fructose exclusive interview with Joe Vaux.
Vibrant and bold, Oscar Joyo’s latest body of work which was exhibited at Thinkspace Projects in Los Angeles, vibrates the retina; while delving into his childhood memories childhood in Malawi and themes of Afrofuturism.
Something interesting happens when when artists like Alan and Carolynda Macdonald, who have the painting fundamentals mastered, decide to subvert expectations and perplex a viewers expectations conceptually. Click to read the Hi-Fructose exclusive interview.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List