TKG+ is the contemporary platform of the Tina Keng Gallery. Its mission is to promote and support the most interesting and significant contemporary art from the region. The gallery works with emerging artists and privileges experimentation in art across different mediums, from video and photography to installation and new media. As its name suggests, TKG+ believes in the exponential growth and possibility of art in the 21st century. For its first time at the West Bund Art & Design, TKG+ is pleased to present four Taiwanese artists: Wang Yahui (b. 1973), Charwei Tsai (b. 1980), Joyce Ho (b. 1983), and Chen Ching-Yuan (b. 1984). With their unique sensibilities and diverse paintings, videos, and installations, these artists open a dialogue on image making in contemporary culture.
Joyce Ho (b. 1983) presents several video and sculptural installations, such as a girl sculpture in a rabbit mask in Semi-Transparent One (2013), and a pair of plastic gloves left on a cutting board in Everyday Practice (2016). These pieces capture the intangible of our everyday existence through a rich and mysterious visual language, leading viewers through an exploration of truth and imagination, and of the intimate yet detached relationship between the individual and reality. Ho has exhibited internationally, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; as well as the Kobe Biennale; Asian Art Biennale; and Busan Biennale.
Chen Ching-Yuan's (b. 1984) neoclassical painting portrays whimsical scenes set in reality, tugging at the heartstrings with his copious visual expressions, abundant symbols, and somber palette. He has participated in international biennials, including the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art and Asia Triennial Manchester. Joyce Ho and Chen Ching-Yuan both highlight in their artistic and visual ambiguities the easily ignored perceptions or deeply buried consciousness of man.
Compared with Ho's and Chen's cunning symbology, Wang Yahui and Charwei Tsai convey a philosophy of self-reflection in traditional culture through a visual vocabulary of abstraction, simplicity, and Eastness. Wang's (b. 1973) photography series "A Slant of Light" (2015) translates the impalpable traces of light and shadow — manifest in minimal color blocks created through painting and paper installation, as well as fluid calligraphic lines — into temporal and spatial aesthetics of the Chinese literati. Wang has participated in various international artist residencies and biennials, such as the Taipei Biennial; Shanghai Biennale; International Film Festival, Rotterdam; and Hors Pistes Film Festival at the Centre Pompidou.
Charwei Tsai (b. 1980) presents two series: "We Came Whirling Out of Nothingness" (2014), where she inscribed Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra on concentric spirals rendered in ink, emanating an air of solemn serenity; and "Universe of Possibilities" (2016), a photography series of details of shells that evokes planetary surfaces, where she reexamines the relationship between contemporary living and spirituality, through scrutiny of organisms and material cycles in nature, at the same time proposing her new understanding of individualism and revealing a worldview that stands apart from that of the Western mainstream. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Biennale of Sydney; Centre Pompidou-Metz, France; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial; Dojima River Biennale; Yokohama Triennial; Ruhrtriennale; and Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.
Wang Yahui, Charwei Tsai, Joyce Ho, and Chen Ching-Yuan together embody a diversity of culture and aesthetics. With its finger on the pulse of contemporary thinking, TKG+ is pleased to present these four artists and their respective works that instantiate Asia's burgeoning art scene, exploring artistic possibilities at West Bund Art & Design 2016.