Catalogues - Plastic Cream

This time Lai Chiu-Chen's exhibition is entitled as Plastic Creamwhich is a title enriched with materiality, cuteness and sweet greasiness. On one hand, the title blatantly indicates the material attributes of the work, the image and the material are induced with an industrial texture, but within this flattened surface belies the seemingly adorable toy heads, thus the work carries a subtle sense of stickiness in its alienation and it is in between warmness and coldness. This resembles the relationship between the world and the toys, toys are the simulation of the world; the world is the reality of the toys, the two are inter-referential. In the chasm between these two elements, Lai has found an entrance, a slit-like and deep space, that is adequate to contain the world of his creation.

Lai Chiu-Chen's works relate the more fashionable intonation. Nevertheless, behind his cartoon-like images belie in essence the eternal aesthetic motif—simulation and representation. In this exhibition, his works consist of purely toy heads, and which seem to reproduce and multiply in themselves like a sign. Through such terse method of creation, after eliminating the triviality of composition, the space and the painting haptic, we on the contrary can truly confront the image in itself. The layer after layer of colors on the canvas and the artistry embedded within the evenly spread interior and the border silhouette. His works thus express a flat and cold feel but with a solid and rich material transformation. From here, we can see clearly of how he pursues multiplicity through singularity and discovers another possible method of painting through abstinence. All along, Lai Chiu-Chen only draws what he sees and this is an entrance for his creation between the world and those toys, and a reply to them.