Lai Chiu-Chen

Biography

Lai Chiu-Chen's works carry a whiff of pop art. Western pop culture and the aesthetics of Japanese animation seem to appear frequently in his works, but underneath the surface of his cartoon-like images is actually a constant painting proposition —simulation and reproduction. Lai's selections have been not only about the images seen on a computer monitor, but also about painting pictures all along. The artist has consciously shifted the content of painting from the objects and photographs used in the past to the painting of pictures, as if to show that the painting and image traditions have become objects of their own appropriation and imitation. These historical painted picture constructions of a scale-free network beyond the orthodoxy of fine art history and the networked and self-organized connection method constitute the artist's unique response to the canon of art history. As Lai once said, "I never tell stories", the unique relation between pop culture's elements reveals an alternative reality under the interpretation of the artist. The fragmented symbols, images and memories have been reassembled, integrated and exported. They reveal a flat and cold feeling but also a solid and rich material transformation and lead viewers to think about the multiphase meanings of image in the layers of colors, the mottled texture of the painting and the painterliness embedded within the evenly spread interior and the border silhouette. Lai chooses painted pictures that span cultures, time, and space to be the object of his gaze before he starts painting. His paintings evoke a sense of déjà vu and a kind of nostalgia for history and memory that does not necessarily cause tears, but definitely a kind of distant poignancy, and these are the thoughts that Lai calls forth in viewers with his work.

Lai Chiu-Chen, born in Jiufen Taiwan, 1970, graduated from Taipei National University of Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts M.F.A. Program. Lai's works receive international attention as well as support, and were collected by several significant art Museum, such as Long Museum (Shanghai), Taipei Fine Arts Museum and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. He has won many awards, including First Prize of Taipei Arts Award, Dr. Stanley Ho Foundation Art Award, First Prize of Kuo Po-Chuan Fine Arts Award, First Prize of Tunghua Rotary Club Fine Arts Award, First Prize of Grand Award of Prix de Paris, etc. He also won The Light of Transparent, Art Subsidization Program, National Culture and Arts Foundation in 2004 and Colonialism in Body, Art Subsidization Program, National Culture and Arts Foundation in 1997. The artist's important exhibitions include: Rolling! Visual Art in Taiwan, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea, 2013; Have You Eaten Yet?- 2007 Asian Art Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan, 2007; A Glimpse of Contemporary Art in Taiwan, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan, 2006; Scylla and Charybdis in Love: The Challenges Facing Contemporary Taiwanese Artists, Gwangju Art Museum, Korea, 2004; Parts of Toys, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2003. Abnormal Temple, A Group Exhibition, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2000. 1997 Final Roam, Abnormal Temple, Sanchih, Taiwan, 1997, etc.