Huang was born in Taipei, 1965. He was awarded with a bachelor degree of Chinese Painting, in the Fine Art Department, Chinese Culture University. Huang started to receive attention in the Taiwanese artist community in the late 80s. He currently based in Beijing and continues working. It was at the transition moment when Taiwanese martial law was just promulgated, when the culture of authority deconstructed, the strength of society inspired, while his works of ink painting shown a tremendous transformation. During the 1990s, Huang was inspired by the floral forms of plants, and develop his innovative Wrinkling Method, that shaped in organic forms similar with human being or animals, especially applying shapes of disfigured human or quasi-creatures as his core language. His important works include Crazy Delivery Room, Zoon, Lover’s Library Flower, or not Flower Phallicism, all of which had delivered strong organic energy, inferring the initial status of life that was once so powerful. Huang also explores possibilities of new art forms such as mixed media, installment, or land art, using media that represent energy of life such as water, oyster shell, and moss, meaningfully corresponding to his innovation in ink painting. He received the County Government Award of Taipei County Art Exhibition in 1993, and he was also awarded by Asian Cultural Council Taiwan Foundation in 1996. As a representative, Huang took part in the 46th La Biennale di Venezia. He has abundant experience in local and international exhibition, and acts as a prominent figure among contemporary Chinese artist community. Started from 2006, he based in Beijing to continue his creation.
HUANG Chih-Yang’s art combines ink-brush with installation, which brings a sense of new energy to the traditional art form and also allows two-dimensional ink-brush paintings to step into the realm of threedimensionality, with the dynamic infectious visual quality transferred into a peculiar visual ambiance. Some of the hard to discern half-man-half-beast subjects depicted in his artwork appears like creatures with multiple tentacles. These mysterious images also hint at the state of survival for modern people in our civilized world and also the underlying inner desires.
The social ambiance in post martial law period inspired him to ponder on his true mission as an artist. He can’t help but to experiment and subvert art until he has fully deconstructed the harmony and rhythm in traditional ink painting. At the turn between two different eras, Huang is given ample room for further exploration. The size of his painting tends to be huge, while the color mellow. In his works, a series of disfigured creatures take the forms of aliens with flagellum-like tentacles, in ambiguous shapes between human, worms, and animals. The images created by Huang are no doubt a moral allegory of contemporary faces of human race, showing the two sides of humanity: those collapsed and those unleash their desires. His touch of brush is wild and intertwined with images symbolize reproductive organs or hermaphrodite, undoubtedly throwing sharp questions directly into the viewers’ hearts. Meanwhile, he revolutionizes the traditional demonstration of ink panting, by hanging the massive paintings in groups, in the middle of the exhibition space, which thereby transformed into a special aesthetic field.
After moved to Beijing, Huang’s works started to include new transitions, which contemplate upon the intersections between spiritual beings and livelihood. Such change is similar to monasticism, engenders multiple layers of tonality in his paintings, where the rhythmic touches imply the painter’s reflection upon his inner self. The subtle current of passions is still vivid, strong, and unstoppable, running through his works, signifying Huang’s importance in contemporary ink painting.
Chinese title: | 《Zoon 》系列 |
English title: | The Zoon Series |
Decade: | 1996 |
Medium / Classification: | ink painting and calligraphy |
Dimensions: | 338.5×127.5 cm ×11 pieces |
Artist: | HUANG Chih-Yang |
Life-span: | 1965 - |
Collection Unit: | Collection of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts |
Contact method for authorization: | Guide to the Use of Image Files and Data from the Online Collection Database |
Related Exhibition: | "The Pioneers" of Taiwanese Artists, 1961-1970 |