From Lost Land to Living Memory: Chiu Wei-hsiang’s Toil and Soil at GDM

Description

Growing up in a rural area of Taoyuan, a coastal district in Taiwan, Chiu Wei-hsiang’s artistic journey began with loss. Drawing on the loss of his family’s land, as well as the deaths of loved ones, the Taiwanese artist developed his own style of “earthiness.” His paintings depict altar offerings, stray animals and everyday objects in saturated colours. With raw, unvarnished lines and incomplete compositions, the artist evokes the shadows of vanished places and dispersed kinship. 

This aesthetic embodies his attachment to roots, ancestors, land and bloodline. Before the demolition of his ancestral home, due to the government’s Taoyuan Aerotropolis scheme, he staged “The House (2023)” and “Root (2024),” transforming vanishing geography into spiritual resistance. 

Also featured in the exhibition are the artist’s self-portraits, through which he records different stages of his life through gesture and expression. In these paintings, bodies and faces are deliberately distorted, while saturated colours and simplified features convey emotion through details such as a twisted lip or a single raised brow.

An opening reception will be held on 10 September at 17:00 and an artist-led tour will take place on 12 September at 14:30.