Hsu was born in Taiwan, 1966. He graduated from department of Sculpture, Arts and Crafts Faculty, Fu-Hsin Trade and Art School in 1986. He received a bachelor degree in western painting of the Fine Art Department, Chinese Culture University. He studied in plastic art in École supérieure d'art d'Aix-en- Provence, France during 1992 to 1997. In 1995 he received Diplôme national d'arts plastiques, with Félicitations du jury (Jury award), and later was awarded with Diplôme national supérieur d'expression plastique in first place in 1997. In 1997 he received the County Government Award of Taipei County Art Exhibition in 1997, a merit award in the 12th Nanying Art Exhibition and a Taipei award in the plastic art category in Fine Art exhibition of Taipei City in 1998. In 2002, Hsu received Creation Award of Modern Painting from Li Chungsheng foundation. He received Yageo Tech-Art Award from Asian Cultural Council in 2006, the first price of the 1st public art award in 2008, and the first awarded artist from Pak Hing Kan Art Foundation in 2013. As a pioneer of the mechanical installation art in Taiwan, Hsu dedicated himself to studying the relationship among past memories, life experiences and artistic expressions. His works are touching and full of warmth. Currently based in New York, he constantly participates in important exhibitions in both local and international occasions.

What shape does memory take on? SHYU Ruey-Shiann’s kinetic installation provides us with a vivid interpretation, with an “original model” of the Wolf125 motorcycle placed on a dream-representative white box - the result of a month’s work by the artist to gradually deconstruct the motorcycle. The motorcycle is used as a prototype to connect with the dreams and some wonderful experiences from the artist’s youth, which are derived from a dream journey around the island in his youthful years. Through the artist’s gesture, this seemingly cold and detached machine is injected with the warmth of humanity, which also strays from the conventional relationship between “man and object”. No longer the subject of exhaustion for human activities, the object is transformed into a vivid and intimate proof of our existence.

The beginning of Hsu’s artistic life is closely related with his childhood experience when he accompanied his mother salvage from the wastes. Collecting varies of objects is not just a part of his emotional experience that connects him and his family, but already merged into his life history. His works Life and Death, River of Childhood, and Trace are all related to his childhood memories or experiences of early years. When cold metal gadgets, electric wires and many other lifeless forms are instilled with emotions and experiences, they seem to change gradually as humanity takes hold. They shall eventually become crystallized carries of life and its traces, and gaze back and you and me poetically at many subtle moments to come.

When machines become the source of aesthetic strumming, the connections between life, nature, and material world also subtly change. When interacted with human beings, the objects thus have souls of their own, and become connected with some part deep down in viewer’s mind. The forms of object do not only matter in terms of their functions and the purposes they serve, but might also be related to important humane feelings in life. In this cold society of alienation, Hsu opens a channel of conversation between us and the material world with his arts, while adding metaphorical life to the materials he uses. Furthermore, the elements applied in his works are not just the motors, electric wires, gears, metals, ceramics, or feathers, but also including the body as well as labor of the artist, and the heat of his own life, all of which constitute into a comprehensive cohabitation between human and nature, between man and material, between one and others. Accumulated along with his artistic career for almost 20 years, his focus upon private memory and origin of emotional experience has further expanded to his field of view, onto the real face of humanity hidden in urban space and all other social environment.