Lai-Hsing CHEN
Chen Lai Hsing was born in Taichung, Taiwan in 1949. Chen met his mentor, Huang Wen-de, in 1963 when he was studying in high school, where he cultivated a bold style of painting as a rebellious teenager. He graduated from the National College of Fine Arts (now the National Taiwan University of Arts) in 1972 and returned to his hometown to work as a teacher. In 1981 he went to Taipei for a harsh and creative lifestyle. In 1984, he returned to his hometown and became famous for his paintings of the May 20th Incident in the 1980s. Chen has held over twenty exhibitions at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.
Chen Lai Hsing’s paintings are mainly depicting Taiwan’s landscape and life, and are full of local vitality. His oil paintings depict the rapid transformation of Taiwan’s rural areas from farming to industrial and commercial society, resulting in the disrupted psychology of the poor and disadvantaged classes in society, thus expressing the various conflicts in life. His works have been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and are widely collected.