Born in Taichung in 1960, HUNG Tien-Yu graduated from Hsinchu Teachers College (the National Hsinchu University of Education now) in 1980. In 2000, Hung won the First Prize of LIAO Chi-Chun Oil Painting Award. Since he first started his artistic career, he has been fascinated by the observation on and the depiction of nature, dealing with his subjects by capturing the natural scenery. In his artworks, he meticulously depicts the transformation of light and shadow as well as the four-season natural scenery which changes with the passing of time. In 2001, he held the solo exhibition Memoir to the next Generation of Formosa at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, while in the exhibition he continued elaborating the subject of his catalogue Landscape in Blanks: Memoir of Formosa from 1700-2000, which was published in 2007, and furthered his artistic focus.

As a field researcher, HUNG Tien-Yu studies the geography, history, biology, and ecology of specific places, combining what he sees with the pre-existing written documents to tell the hundred-yearold story of Taiwan’s forest. Meanwhile, he juxtaposes the concepts of “primitive landscape” and “landscape in blank.” In his series works, he leaves the spaces where the human civilization intrudes the natural scenery in blank to demonstrate the gradual disappearance of the beautiful landscape, reflecting how the land of Taiwan has been destroyed and exploited by the progressive civilization. The series works after 2007 such as Mercy Feast and Altar focus on food culture, using blood-stained images to remind human beings, who are given the power to rule the earth, to be merciful to all living things instead of sacrificing these creatures for culinary pleasure. The works indeed full of the attempt to awaken the world. The series Money Rules the World – the Tropical Forests which has started in 2011 further explores how the international enterprises destroy the natural environment of the Third World, criticizing and revealing the harm of the global capitalism and commercialism.

“City” is the embodiment of the Chinese ferocious mythological animal “tao-tie” which devours everything and will never be full…… City devours the best part of every product in the world without leaving anything behind. Will it return something to the land as a reward? Not really! It is even more difficult than asking a stray dog to give away his pork buns. What it returns to nature is the polluted air haunting the land day and night, the stinky water, trucks of feces, heaps of garbage, and nuclear waste which has no place to be secretly disposed. In the name of progress, we yearn for bigger and greater cities. My gosh!

—HUNG Tien-Yu

As an academically trained artist, HUNG Tien-Yu has always been fascinated by and devoted to various painting skills which range from classicalism, impressionism, to post-impressionism. However, he decides to get rid of the academic training, searching for the most truthful artistic essence from his observation on the natural scenery and developing his own artistic vocabulary on the basis of his life experiences which are closely tighten with the land of Taiwan. The co-existing relationship between human and nature is the focus of HUNG Tien-Yu’s artistic practice. The intentional “blanks” in his paintings become the unique transformation for him to interpret contemporary civilization.

The on-going series Landscape in Blanks features Taiwan’s landscape, while the artis transforms the progress of the civilization’s intrusion into continuous images on the basis of his studies, field research, imagination, and integration. The intentional blanks ironically expose how civilization intrudes and destroys nature. The imagined reality and the present reality are juxtaposed chronically in his paintings. His works thus go beyond the limitation of time and space to visualize the landscape, speaking out for the vanishing scenery through their visual dynamics and giving a voice to the wounded nature.