Liu Chia-wei
Excerpts from The Boundary of the Scenery: An Artist Statement, Liu Chia-Wei
My interest in “packaging” takes root after completing Still and Expiration Date in 2018. The packaging itself calls forth layers of connotations. We uses it as a means for protection, isolation, conservation and beautification, while the packaged objects seem eager to break away. The symbolical meanings of the packages, coupled with their strong sense of materiality, lead me to a highly intriguing issue: Let the materials speak out.
I try to promote them from supporting role to protagonist in our life, view them from diverse perspectives, and reconstruct the scenery. It is not only an attempt to transform and reflect the external world, but also an attempt to project my mind’s eye. There is a mountain in everyone’s heart. I expect to raise concern for the land through the scenery I paint, which would resonate in some way with the viewers.
Early on in my creative process, I am inspired to mimic different forms of mountains with various packages. After a general picture forms in my mind, I starts out by “shaping” the ideal forms and styles before bringing them to life through portrayal. In terms of painting techniques, I use a combination of direct and glazing painting basically as usual to add a shading effect. When it comes to use of colors, a special attention is paid to produce a translucent visual effect via interaction of transparent and opaque colors. Intermediate colors are applied for most of the paintings in this exhibition. Noteworthy is that the background is set in a grey tone sometimes to visually underscore the subject. Sometimes dramatic rays of light are deliberately added, in line with emotions, to bring out strong or calm color tones.