Yeh Chu-Sheng was born in Gushan, Kaohsiung in 1946. When he studied at Kaohsiung Municipal Kaohsiung Senior High School, his teacher Luo Ching-Yun inspired him to devote his life to art. In 1970, he graduated from the National Taiwan Junior College of Arts (the National Taiwan University of Arts now). Later, he had taught at Cianjhen Junior High School in Kaohsiung until he went abroad. During his college years, Yeh Chu-Sheng started to question the academic training which only focused on skills at that time. He kept wondering how art forms could be adopted to express individual’s complex feelings. Therefore, he decided to study abroad. In 1975, he entered the Art College at University of Madrid for advanced studies. After receiving the academic degree, he traveled around Europe until he moved back to Taiwan in 1982.

After returning to Taiwan, Yeh Chu-Sheng lived in Kaohsiung. During his stay in Europe, Taiwan had experienced a rapid development in construction, especially Kaohsiung as an industrial city. The artist who had just moved back to Taiwan thus felt a strong shock. Therefore, he started to use the remained objects being deserted or destroyed by men as his materials, rearranging these objects in paintings or spaces as his charge against show human beings had brought a disaster to nature. Most of his works are space installations or large-scale mixed-media works. Environmental/ecological issues also become the main subjects in Yeh’s later artistic practice. In 1988, he moved to Taipei. Since the 1990s, he has continuously exhibited work series, including “Flower•Zen,” “Sea•Ecology,” “The Seed of the Environment,” and etc.

Seeds are symbols of life. The author uses seeds to indicate the unpredictability of life as it is passed down or procreates in its own cycle. Two abstract symbols that resemble budding seeds are juxtaposed on the canvas. They are connected to the red color field indistinctively through a line that looks like a Chinese calligraphic brushstroke. A harmonious structure is formed as spaces are brought together and signs are matched.

Yeh Chu-Sheng’s artworks mainly focus on the exploration of materials’ physicality and the use of space in paintings. In such an abstract expression style, the ready-made objects intervene the works, enriching the visual textures, signs, and the “charisma” of the materials. “The object’s image” and “the objects’ quality” are the two terms greatly adopted in his artistic practice. His influence on Taiwan’s contemporary art started in the early 1980s when he returned from Spain. In 1984, he joined the group exhibition Difference in Space at Spring Gallery, Taipei. Later, his works were exhibited at SOCA as well as The Biannual Exhibition of Art in Southern Taiwan. Yeh gradually developed an abstract installation form which combined various materials and ready-made objects, highlighting how the intensive physicality stimulated the spiritual response, inspiring Taiwan’s abstract art in a very different way in terms of concept and form after the 1980s.

Meanwhile, he extends his artistic concept to explore the relationship between human and environment. He includes the environmental/ecological issues in his works, visualizing the subjects in an inexplicable and metaphorical way by providing an empathetic interaction between viewers and the “works’ images.” He is one of the rare artists in Taiwan who expresses the concern about environment and nature through artistic practice.