Booth：A30

LEE, Kuang-Yu (1954-)

Born in Neiwei, Kaohsiung in 1954, Lee Kuang-Yu is a renowned sculptor who integrates Eastern philosophy and Western techniques. He has held solo exhibitions in New York, Venice, Spain, Austria, Japan, Singapore, etc. Lee graduated from Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Spain, and obtained his MFA from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain in the 1980s. After returning to Taiwan, he taught sculpture at Taipei National University of the Arts and National Taiwan University of Arts for over twenty years. He is deemed a representative sculptor that has imported Western sculptural concepts and techniques to Taiwan.

After retiring from teaching, Lee has been living and working in the mountains in Xizhi, and the seclusion of living in the remote area promoted the important transformation of his work. The artist used to depict weighty and substantial beauty; now, he portrays worldly existences and their implications in a subtle way and with sculpture interwoven with physical structure and blankness. Through the contrast and dialogue among the state of mind, the mountainous landscape, and the artistic conception of his work, he has created a unique style that integrates Western sculptural skills and Eastern humanistic meanings, fully embodying the perfect unison of the East and the West.

 Jo HSIEH (1962-2017)

Jo Hsieh was born in Chiayi, Taiwan in 1967, and currently lives in London, UK. She studied in London in the 1990s, and obtained her MA from Royal College of Art, UK, and her PhD from Falmouth College of Art, UK. Her outstanding creativity made Hsieh an artist represented by the internationally renowned Michael Goedhuis Gallery that presented her in various art fairs in New York, Miami, and London, and held solo exhibitions for her. Hsieh’s work is popular among many collectors and galleries in the US and Europe. In 2002, she won the First Prize in the Art Review Arts Award in the UK. Her achievement even dazzled the royal family and won her the title of “Royal College of Art LADY.”

Specializing in making art with oil color, pastel, acrylic paint, photoetching, and pigment, Hsieh is especially known for her minimalistic, abstract painting of blue pigment, which has been prized as her masterpiece. Having long studied Eastern and Western metaphysics, the artist transforms her understanding of philosophical ideas and concepts into soulful and profound shades of blue with diversified expression in mixed media. The infinite state at the end of the world’s existence is her enduring theme and motif, which she has never stop exploring.