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After the Taipei Art Awards - Chen Zhao-Hua Solo Exhibition
2026/09/25 - 2026/12/20
 

Winner of the Grand Prize at the 2023 Taipei Art Awards, Chen Zhao-Hua responds honestly to the circumstances of his own life, transforming struggles and contradictions that are difficult to articulate into his work. This solo exhibition confronts the challenge of sustaining a livelihood that persists even after receiving institutional recognition. At the Xiaguirou Mt., the work that earned him the Grand Prize, later became firewood, burned to keep him warm through the winter in his frigid sheet-metal studio. When artistic practice can no longer financially support oneself, how should the value of an artwork be measured? As visitors enter the latter part of the exhibition, they encounter a desolate landscape that reflects the artist’s wavering between surrender and perseverance, and his uncertainty over whether it is time to raise the white flag. The exhibition unfolds as both a confession and an inquiry: as workers in contemporary society, pulled between reality and dreams, what is it that compels us to carry on?

 

Artist
Chen Zhao-Hua

Born in Miaoli, Taiwan, in 1990, currently lives and works in Taipei.
Master of Fine Arts from Tunghai University and MFA in New Media Art from Taipei National University of the Arts.

With years of experience working in art fabrication, Chen Zhao-Hua sees himself as a machine. Reflecting on his experiences of work and life, he has gradually developed an artistic practice centered on modified compressors and condensation technology.

In his humid, weathered workplace, Chen reconstructs everyday labor through machines that continue to operate despite malfunctioning, alongside frost that repeatedly gathers and recedes across metal plant forms. These elements transform his lived experience into immersive installations, giving physical form to a psychological state that shifts between control and loss of control.

Behind the polished, finished surfaces of contemporary art lie the precarious conditions of artistic production. Chen brings these hidden realities into the exhibition space, using his work to examine the relationships among artistic creation, labor, and individual survival.

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