TKG+ is pleased to announce its participation in the inaugural edition of Frieze Seoul with a presentation of Jane Lee, Joyce Ho, and Ching-Yuan Chen. Ranging from installation to painting, their diverse body of work examines the interconnection between reality and dreams, history and culture, fused with lived experience and personal memory.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a seismic impact on our way of life: Social indifference morphs into social distancing and self-isolation; at the same time, people yearn for connection now more than ever. The three artists watch the world unfolds both as observers and stakeholders. Through their respective practices, they construct worlds independent from reality, where a fixed mindset is challenged, and the viewer is free to explore new perspectives.
The classical palette of Ching-Yuan Chen (b. 1984) imbues “The Laundry” series (2022), where brushstrokes interweave to form visual narratives poised on the threshold of dreamscape and reality against the backdrop of a laundromat. Based on the artist’s personal experience of frequenting the laundromat, the paintings, while documenting objective details, conveys his ideas and fantasies from a subjective vantage point. The window of the laundry machine, for the artist, is a portal between two parallel worlds, while the island in the sea reflected in the window embodies the artist’s affection for his native island country. Piles of clothes, or socks that sometimes get lost in the laundromat become allegorical manifestations of human society. Chen’s conscious decision to create intriguing nuances is key to the narrative tension and unusual visual appeal in his work.
With a background in theater, Joyce Ho (b. 1983) infuses her work with a crisp sense of drama, where the mise-en-scène, the characters, and the interdependence between the work and the space coalesce. Ho’s work emanates an air of minimalist theatricality that verges on clinical. Out of quotidian objects in careful arrangement she educes intimate dialogues with the viewer. But the façade of austerity veils not her contemplation on life, from interpersonal relationships, to the balance between people and space, to the boundary between subjective perception and reality. Through the choreography of symbolism, collective memory, and individual sensory experience, Ho invites the viewer to interrogate habitual associations. Her latest video work The VERA X Diary (2022) sees the protagonist inhabit different idle spaces in a neutral home setting. A scrutiny of how she interacts with her temporary abode becomes a query about balance between humanity and space.
Singapore-based artist Jane Lee (b. 1963) redefines the relationship between frame, canvas, and paint in her practice, where her work is no reproduction of the exterior world or an expression of her interiority. Through an assiduous process of layering, mixing, winding, wrapping, kneading, and daubing, Lee repurposes common materials into unanticipated forms that straddle painting and sculpture, ultimately subverting painting conventions. Her practice often revolves around her perception of the land and people. The latest “Purple Blues” series (2022) delves into the shades of purple and blue, emerging as the artist’s sensuous and evocative vision of Seoul.
The diverse works of the three artists parallel in challenging the viewer to tackle habitual thinking. In an age when the line between the real and the virtual is blurred, the artists’ keen sense of observation and their works serve as a lens through which we navigate the world.
Founded in 2009 in Taipei, Taiwan, TKG+ champions intriguing contemporary artists in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and privileges artistic forms in diverse mediums. The goal is to nurture dialogues in contemporary art that push boundaries, and ultimately foreground exciting artists in Taiwan and across the region on the international art scene.