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Since the late 1990s, the works of Taiwanese artist Lee Chu-hsin have clearly been inclined toward the realm of surrealism, with his pursuit of the retroactive often presented through classical forms. During this period, Lee became enthralled with the expressive language extant in surrealist painting. Through his arrangement of unusual objects he constructs visual expression that defies everyday logic, forming a sort of seemingly surrealist scene via a fractured or unconventional placement of imagery. Unlike the extreme irrationality and anti-establishmentarianism found in surrealism, however, the mood in Lee’s paintings seeks to convey a muted message, seemingly having their own intrinsic and ongoing emotional context amidst the irrationality. Self-consciously or not, amid the irrationality a personal emotional outpouring actually lies hidden. Consequently, Lee's paintings from this period are to some extent colored with an autobiographical emotional pain.
In a 1997 series of still life paintings with a leather suitcase as a main theme, the artist's concealed reality is hidden within the suitcases. The suitcases become a symbolic marker his secrets. Without exception the suitcases are situated off in some dark and shadowy corner. The dark, shadowy effect cast by the artist's use of black is sometimes the characteristic image in Lee paintings, concealing a morose and unsettling quality. Furthermore, the suitcases serve as a metaphor for mobility or motion, on the one hand conveying the impressions and memories of a given place at a given time while on the other reflecting the hurried unease of being unable to linger for long or a sense of escape or evacuation. From this point of view, the suitcases reveal anxieties about physical and psychological security.
From 2001 onward, the depiction of anxieties in Lee's paintings changes from a suitcase to the human hand. During this period Lee dabbles in the classical painting traditions of the Northern European Renaissance, particularly the painting of 16th and 17th century Germany, Flanders and Holland, seeking inspiration in the forms of the day and thereby forming a powerful sort of classical style. Those well versed in art history will no doubt recognize in Lee's works echoes of the hand imagery seen in the works of Albrect Durer (1471-1528) and Hand Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). In terms of the expression of form, although Lee works assiduously to instill an individualistic flair, the depictions of the hands in his paintings seem somewhat restrained in form and Lee appears unable to distance himself from the dazzling original works of the great masters due to the brilliant artistic expression of the Renaissance artists.
In a series of works between 2001 and 2002 with the human hand as the focal point, Lee continued to use the artistic language of surrealism with which he was already familiar, depicting only the subject person’s two hands in the paintings while the rest of the subject’s body remains obscured in shadow. In form, these works owe much to the handling of the dramatic interplay of light and shadow of Caravagio (1571-1610) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), aim to bestow a kind of sanctified radiance upon the hands depicted. Analyzed from an iconographic point of view, the extensive shading seems dramatically concealing, with the light source illuminating the foreground, creating a kind of stage effect with the subject’s two hands exposed under the light, seizing the visual attention of the viewer. Lee occasionally places the subject’s hands on a bolt of red felt or other fabric placed on a table of other platform like some sort of altar or sacrificial platform, leading one to draw an association with the religious paintings or altar polyptychs of the European Middle Ages through the Baroque period. What the viewer is left to contemplate is that although these hands have been imbued with an apparent religiosity, they are connected with no clearly visibly body. Taking a literary interpretation, although these unconventional religious images magnify the dignity of the hands, the body remains shrouded in darkness, the objective clearly being to evoke a sort of paradox of form and significance.
As far as the message contained therein, Lee really isn’t echoing or carrying on the iconographic traditions of European art history. His main purpose behind the stylistic appropriation was for the convenience of mental association; its motivation did not seek to confer any religious connotation. Through the symbolic iconographic language what he actually intended to craft was more akin to a hymn on life and the sea changes in world affairs. Despite lacking any clear-cut significance or position on social values, Lee’s paintings nevertheless usually clearly exhibit feelings of dejection and powerlessness people have facing modern life, carrying a deep pessimism and uncertainty about the future. The hollow and empty blackness seen in his paintings is, according to Lee, like a black veil, but it’s actually more like an unknowable, unrelenting black hole that naturally prompts people to make a mental association with death.
Even if his works really don’t derive from any religious significance, Lee still continues to make use of allusions to European Catholic religious paintings. In his 2005 work “The Last Supper,” he continues to make use of the composition of earlier depictions of the Last Supper of Christ and his Disciples, particularly the famous work of the same name by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the only difference being that Lee’s work is bereft of human presence, depicting only the break left on the empty dining table. The human characters have vanished, leaving behind the construct of a still life. The subject matter of the original “The Last Supper” should be possessed of psychological voice and dramatic tension; Lee’s modern rendition retains only the tranquil and timeless atmosphere following the departure of the human characters. Using the expression of “The Last Supper” Lee again conveys a taste for creating suspense, ambiguity and uncertainty.
Beginning in 2002, Lee’s works also begin to exhibit themes of social and humanistic concerns. Using the topical subject matter of aging Taiwanese farmers, he blends classical techniques with the linguistic imagery of surrealism while similarly imbuing the old farmers in the paintings with a near religiously iconographic dignity. In the 2002 work “Old Farmers Annals” a scene of two seated farmers is recreated through the methods of surrealism. The faces and upper bodies of the two subjects are not seen; only the lower halves of the bodies of the two subjects seated in chairs are visible along with two pairs of heavily veined hands exposed under the light, forming a powerful contrast of light and dark. The space where the head of the farmer on the right should be is instead even replaced with an image of a banana tree for form and structure – a classic stylistic ploy of surrealism. For the expressions of the two farmers, the artist employs the “hands” of the farmers, roughened by years of labor and hard times in place of depicting the various wrinkles and weary eyes of their weathered faces, yet manages to evoke an equally dramatic effect. The artist seems to have intentionally repressed any feelings of sadness yet the work cannot help but be emotionally provoking.
Also in 2002, in addition to aging farmers as subject matter, Lee also began to create images of old soldiers. Compared with the use of the hands as the focus of the ethereal lighting with the old farmers, the works depicting old soldiers employ the more traditional principles of portrait paintings but similarly use surrealist elements to emphasize visual change, as in “An Old Soldier’s Nightmares,” for example. In comparison, however, the old soldier paintings from this phase still seem less than idealized. The faces in the paintings could be expected to emphasize the wrinkles around the eyes, intending to reflect the scars of the ravages of time. In reproducing the old soldier, however, aside from the camouflage atop the subject’s head drawing a mental association with an army helmet, the observer is actually at a loss to differentiate the specific characteristics of the “old soldier” solely from the merits of the painting alone. Furthermore, the subject’s eyes display a sort of vacant, “1,000-yard stare” point of view, never intersecting with the gaze of the observer, further losing the power of any direct visual reality.
The old farmers and old soldiers Lee depicts seem as if they have been left behind, lost during the process of social modernization. The farmers have no visual expression, with inky blackness constituting the upper part of their bodies; that of the old soldier has long lost touch with the interaction with reality. This sort of depiction of the weak, emphasizing the sorrow, helplessness and melancholy of contemporary life appear more to reflect a projection of the artist’s own subjective feelings and less about any deep contemplation, questioning or even criticism of anything within the original main body of the work.
Lee’s later “Last Post” and “Living Alone” series largely adhere to the abovementioned basic form, merely developing new names. Relatively different is how in his more recent “Old Soldier” works he proceeds with theatrical scene crafting methods, combining the expressive language of traditional Chinese ink painting, particularly the compositions of Southern Song landscapes and sparse floral arrangements in an attempt to grope about for an originally created surrealistic scene. In the painting, an old soldier is in the water and seems to be floating but is actually bogged down. As before, his eyes diverge from those of the observer, lingering on his present predicament; not staring far off but focused on the here and now. In some works, such as “Old Soldier’s Dream” (2008) and “Gazing Across the Water” (2009), the artist strengthens the tone of his language, dramatically reproducing the old soldier in the water, dramatically recreating the water bubbles caused by the soldier’s own breathing, deliberately magnifying the grueling situation of struggling for life in the water. The old soldier’s body is deeply submerged, with only his head exposed above the surface. The artist takes it further, analogizing the soldier’s head to a stone, thus emitting a sigh of regret in comparing life to the eternity of nature. The artist’s appropriation of Southern Song-style landscapes and floral patterns also produces a distinctive literary association. Situated on the old soldier’s periphery, however, the contrast with the everlasting landscape and fresh foliage further accentuate the massive disconnect. Furthermore, Southern Song landscapes can often evoke an association with a situation of “flight to safety,” as was the fate of the now-aging KMT soldiers that fled China to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War. In an unexpected turn of events, as the 1990s unfolded and Cross-Strait tensions grew more heated, the issue of the old soldiers morphed into a sort of polarizing domestic topic in Taiwan. Although it’s hard to conceal the predestination of Lee’s images of old soldiers and old farmers, he has nonetheless managed to turn political outcry into a kind of helplessness and silent perseverance of man in the face of destiny and in the process depict the long-standing life attitudes of countless Taiwanese.
Obstruction and concealment have consequently become a frequent element of Lee’s imagery aesthetic. In his most recent series of paintings it’s an element he has continued to develop, as in the “Disguise” series (2008). Additionally, in another series titled “Memory” (2009) he also uses parcels as a device to again construct various existential conditions that are hard to put into words. Whether through gloomy, concealed, covered, latent or blurred effects serving as his visual form, their ultimate objective remains depicting the conspicuous. Lee designs a whirling, blurred atmosphere into his paintings that don’t at once seem really to reveal any naked truths about the social reality. On the surface, these works of Lee’s seem to make people feel his aim is to depict certain peripheral groups and disadvantaged strata of society, thus recreating the hard circumstance in which they exist.
In fact, his works point in an entirely different set of circumstances. He continues to be even more interested in creating atmosphere, applying literary allusion and symbolism and injecting them into his surrealistic artistic language and by means of a tone of emotionally expressive sensibility get to the bottom of the emotional and mental states of different people living under varying circumstances. As such, Lee also really need not be inordinately hung up with concerns over sociological issues and can to the extent possible abandon overly determinist destiny and sentimentality, thus diving in deeper into direct visual contact and digging even more and even deeper into the human character and yet still not see the unknown. |
