One and Only

At the 2024 ONE ART Taipei, San Gallery will showcase the works of nine artists. Each artist explores the ever-changing relationship between nature and all things through profound observations of their surroundings and accumulated life experiences.

Zeng Yung-Ning’s “Yaoyao” series derives vibrant trees and flowers from the shapes of plants, standing in the wind like a burst of spring vitality pulsing through layered brushstrokes. Harmonious mountains and valleys weave through the canvases, with layers of dots and lines spreading like vegetation across the earth, connecting and forming through tiny points, lines, and surfaces.

Akaizukan excels at depicting fantastical scenes that straddle reality and imagination with meticulous brushstrokes. The “Nori-Nori” series this time portrays creatures and their vehicles, capturing the Japanese essence of enjoying the moment with vitality, swaying to the rhythm of music.

Viga consistently seeks to explore how art can make people feel happiness through her paintings. She records fragments of daily life, such as farmers harvesting under bountiful apple trees and friends exchanging gifts in the blooming camellia season. Viga’s works encapsulate all the beautiful moments in the fleeting span of human life.

Huang Chu-Hao’s works resemble surreal dreamscapes, featuring long-eared, sky-reaching rabbit-people riding on crocodile backs and lizard-people travelers navigating octopus-tentacled horses. These human-animal hybrids, despite their often expressionless faces, convey emotions through their dynamic and versatile body language, breaking free from the need to recognize emotions through facial features.

Su Yu-Ching’s traditional meticulous brushwork (gongbi) creates narratives distinct from traditional landscapes, shifting the perspective from external to more intimate and personal environments.

Mariko Kobayashi’s works lead the audience to explore how human existence stems from and continues through the endless cycles of nature. She reminds viewers that what is defined as the end of life is actually the beginning of another, offering a fresh perspective on life and death.

For Kuo Ping-En, traces of life are precious and constantly changing. He is fascinated by the various meanings objects carry, often depicting items like leather shoes, the process of polishing them, bowling balls, daily writings, and footprints. His work focuses on the deep emotional connection between objects and the experiences people have with them.

Midori Nozaka’s landscapes are not of specific scenes but rather repetitive overlays of outlines from different times, places, and spaces. This process gives the painting a sense of fluidity, which she hopes will create an intangible connection with the viewer. Elements from different times, histories, and regions merge in her paintings, forming a new scenery and unique sense of space and time.

Wang Yi-Ting’s ceramic creations resemble archaeological fossils from the future, maintaining the craftsmanship’s marks while naturally presenting the beauty of porcelain textures and glaze knowledge. The texture of porcelain fractures, natural cracks from clay shrinkage, glaze flow and crystallization, and feldspar clumping all possess unique aesthetic features. These are the qualities she loves and strives to express in her ceramic techniques.