Illusory Lamp—Solo Exhibition by E Chen
2016/05/16-06/24
Venue | 1st Floor Lobby of Taishin Holdings Building
The exhibition is free of charge.
Invited by Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture, E Chen has created a site-specific work, Illusory Lamp, for the lobby of Taishin Tower. Through transforming ready-made objects, the artist has moved a street lamp and wild flowers commonly seen in urban area from the outdoor space to the indoor, creating a spatial displacement and visual delight.
In the high-ceiling space next the the spiral staircase in the lobby, the personified street lamp is bending over in 180 degrees as if kissing the potted wild flowers grown indoor. The street lamp replaces the sunlight and gives the plants warmth, transforming humble, indistinctive flowers into a spotlighted focal point.
Artificial light has extended human vision. To manipulate light is to create illusions, which is also human's way of imitating and surpassing nature. E Chen chooses to use antique street lamp to construct an artistic illusion of spatial dialectics. In this world where the line between real and fake is blurred, this work lingers between the past and the present, the indoor and the outdoor, the digital and the tangible; even the fake vines woven with wool has become visually realistic.
Illusory Lamp is the first piece in E Chen's new series of woolen yarn. The complete series of 10 pieces is scheduled to exhibit in Textile Museum of Canada in 2018.
E Chen
E Chen is an architect as well as an installation artist, who holds a welding torch on his right hand and works with knitting with his left while exploring diverse materials. He currently teaches in the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts, Tainan National University of the Arts.
