Foreword

TFAM's "2019 Solo Exhibition Series II" was officially unveiled during the summer. Bringing together their core themes through a wide variety of media to produce an ongoing mutual dialogue, the artists also provide a rich experience for their audience. Through In Wilderness: Beam Through the Dust—artist Huang Hua-Chen associates the exploration of her own creative process, and the deep, profound introspection during an important moment in life, by relating to the story of the Hebrew people wandering in wilderness, as depicted in the Bible. This exhibition includes paintings representing nearly a decade of her work, and her debut series in threedimensional art. The progress in visual language suggests real development of the self and in comprehension of life.
Since the very beginning, Huang has chosen painting as the primary medium for her creative endeavors. She considers a painting with pearls on the sea, painted in 2018, the breakthrough point of her visual imagery, where pearl is a signifier of God's Will—Pearls, beloved chosen ones, being treated like precious treasure. Thus, through the imagery of pearls, the artist's faith is drawn into her painting, and through this scene her feelings and blessings are preserved as well.
A move from flat canvas to the realm of solid shapes provided Huang the opportunity to re-explore the varied characteristics of different media. The interaction of counterworking material's texture and the light touch of an artist, transposed with the duality of painting and sculpting—amidst these contrasts there is common ground. Dealing with different stone materials, one must carefully follow their lines of texture, patiently keeping within the proper bounds, or else risk marring the surface. And if the stone has a blemish which must be buffed out through repeated polishing, this careful process of restoration in its turn becomes a metaphor for human life enduring in the face of hardships. So now what had been an image of pearls in white pigment on a flat canvas has become a three-dimensional form fixed on carved stone, yet there endures unchanging the unwavering sincerity of heart and mind hidden in the artistic touch of its creator.
This solo exhibition has the same aura as its artist—gentle and sensitive, simultaneously tenacious and courageous. In the exhibition room works both large and small complement each other, like icing on a cake. Together they speak a common message: Self-interrogation in a wide, remote wilderness, having lost focus, having lost the way, yet being washed clean and reborn. In Wilderness represents this inner strength and tenacity with which one’s life may move forward, and Huang aptly captured this belief through the medium of painting.

Ping Lin/Director of Taipei Fine Arts Museum

To my shepherd and my loving family

Foreword

Essay

Statement

Artworks

Catalogue

Biography