PLUS IV: Ying Hung + Joyce Ho
Dates
6 MARCH - 24 APRIL 2021
Reception
6 MARCH, 4:30 p.m.
Tina Keng Gallery 1F, No.15, Ln. 548, Ruiguang Rd., Neihu Dist., Taipei 114, Taiwan
Centered on artistic vocabularies evolving through generations, the “Plus” series investigates varying aesthetics that pulsate with time. Refracted through the subversive lens of TKG+, this series chronicles perspectives and cultural codes that echo the Tina Keng Gallery’s classic aesthetics, in an attempt to expand sensory experience beyond visual imagery, and initiate dialogue and spur thought between different generations. For this year’s edition, Plus IV presents the works of artists Ying Hung and Joyce Ho.
Represented by the Tina Keng Gallery, Ying Hung is known for the streaks and grid lines that underpin her work, where recurring grids serve as a metaphor for constraints in the real world. The deconstruction and reconstruction of symbols in her painting informs her creative process. Suavely Hung navigates the relationship between symbology and imagery, much like how an observer sees the world: Despite the unsettling reality portrayed in the painting, the work allows the viewer to stop and savor a balanced moment conjured through gestural brushstrokes.
Represented by TKG+, Joyce Ho has shaped a practice around the deconstruction of symbols. Her use of imagery and found objects triggers in the viewer an odd sense of surprise and suspense, eliciting the punctum of everyday homogeneity that underscores the alarming rate at which modern society straightjackets the individual. The artist’s dispassionate observation of the world is a commentary on the idea of distance: Distance from which to contemplate, to engage one’s body within a space, to watch and discern — a crevice through which Joyce Ho delves into symbology and concocts a moment of choice and decision that warps the viewer’s perception.
The practices of Ying Hung and Joyce Ho coincide in their attention to the particulars of sociocultural symbology. The world they invoke beckons the viewer to stop and gaze into images and objects at once foreign and familiar, recapitulated through the distinct lens of each individual.
Ying Hung
Born in 1958 in Hong Kong, Ying Hung received her BA from the fine arts department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1980, and her MFA from the Pratt Institute in New York in 1987. She now lives and works in New York.
Hung combines images and abstract elements in her paintings, sculptures, and works on paper to create the reality that she perceives. Cultural and historical memory and societal changes are the triggers for her artistic motivation. She uses the techniques of superimposition, juxtaposition, and re-contextualization to invoke new narratives. Sometimes she employs comic pictorial language of exaggeration to emphasize the existence of alienation and vulnerability.
Hung has exhibited internationally, including in New York, Taiwan, and China. She participated in the Art Biennale hosted by the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 1983, and her work has been shown in New York, including PS1 (1990) and the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2000). Since 1994, Hung has participated in group and solo exhibitions in major museum and galleries in Taiwan, such as Mind and Matter: Derivation (2019) and Perpetual Journey (2010), Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan; and Turning Gazes: Woman and Arts in Dialogue, Juming Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2013).
Joyce Ho
Born in 1983 in Taipei, Taiwan, Joyce Ho received her M.A. in studio arts from the University of Iowa. She is an interdisciplinary artist, focusing specifically on painting, sculpture, and theater. Ho has worked as a script writer and theatre director since 2010.
She works across diverse mediums from painting, video, to installation. By integrating the deconstruction of movements and fragmentation of daily rituals with rich and illusory light and shadow, the artist demonstrates the intimate and isolating tensions between people and reality.
Ho has exhibited internationally, including Noire Lumière, How Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2020); Yokohama Triennale: Afterglow, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan (2020); Meditations in an Emergency, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2020); NO ON: Joyce Ho Solo Exhibition, TKG+, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2018); Inhabiting the World, Busan Biennale, Busan Museum of Art, Korea (2014); and Everyday Life — Asian Art Biennale, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2013).
VIEWING ROOM
