2019 - The Alchemy of Icon: The Occult Technique of Kuo Wei-Kuo's Paintings

Curator｜Shen Bo-Cheng


After the solo exhibition in 2013, Lin & Lin Gallery is pleased to present the new solo show of Kuo Wei-Kuo "The Alchemy of Icon: The Occult Technique of Kuo Wei-Kuo's Paintings". Also along with the essays written by curator Dr. Shen Bo-Cheng and Iconology expert, professor Chen Huaien, the viewers are invited to enjoy the years of imagery journey, seeing how has Kuo Wei-Kuo transformed his works of art again by reviewing his past creations and blending with his state of mind of stepped into his 60.

In his portraits from the previous series "Diagram of Commotion and Desire", which are multiple theaters that expressing the intimate desires of the artist's inner mind. And in 2013, Kuo Wei-Kuo replaced the images of himself into the traditional Chinese auspicious items or symbols in his Forbidden Wishes series, continuing the magic realistic approach with a sense of theater in a more reserved manner to expound his fantasy of desires. This solo exhibition was the extension and transformation from previous creations.

The "apocalyptic sense" of turning 60 inspired Kuo presents his new works with a relics-like form that seems found in the ruins. Combine with different medias such as wood board, canvas, animal glue, wax, sawdust, quartz powder, using techniques like smearing, polishing, scraping, spreading therefore to construct poetical texture expressions and images, which meanwhile recording the grieving for the fading of time. Comparatively saying, Kuo's previous works are more in a direct and one-way narrative logic, but in his new series of paintings, Kuo shrinks the images of himself like in past paintings into pieces concealing and drifting in paintings. That allowing viewers to hold a private conversation, therefore, explore their own understandings and perfections of each symbol through personal life experiences and perspective.

The artist also tried to use the approach of "alienation" to handling the spatial attribute. This spatial sense is a metaphor for the ambiguous and "continuous" emotional interpretation of the images in the paintings. Kuo Wei-Kuo like an alchemist skillful operate each image and symbol, transforming the substance memories, emotional fragments or the experiences in life into different image elements, these elements are drifting, impacting, restructuring, then eventually lead us to walk into a fantasy wonderland, which is created by artist's alchemy.