The Taiwan Cultural and Creative Arts Expo Enters the Taichung Creative Palace

Text by / MOOK Scenic Spots Editorial Team, compiled and reported

Liu Guosong’s Ink Art Imagination

This edition of the Cultural and Creative Arts Expo invited Taiwan’s modern ink painting master Liu Guosong to serve as the art ambassador. Known as a “pioneer of Chinese painting,” Liu Guosong has advocated for the modernization of Chinese painting since the 1970s. Using diverse techniques and materials, he broke through the conventions of traditional ink art, navigating between realism and freehand styles, thereby proposing new possibilities for Chinese ink painting. His works are collected by museums and galleries worldwide, making him the living Chinese artist with the most works held in permanent collections.

Liu Guosong said, “Eastern and Western ink paintings can engage in dialogue and develop a new tradition.” He perfectly blends the cosmic worldview of traditional landscape painting with the abstract concepts of Western art. The expo displayed works by him and his students, including the highly sought-after “Space Paintings” series favored by collectors. With abstract and simplified lines, these pieces express the relationship and rhythm between heaven, earth, sun, and moon, reflecting Liu Guosong’s introspective world of neo-landscape through the perspective of the cosmos and the mindset of space. Among the exhibited works, extends the imagination through the trajectory of the moon’s movement, with dreamlike colors and a sense of radiance, as if cosmic light is emanating from the paper. Gazing quietly at the moon’s rise and fall seems to merge one into the shifting landscapes and celestial changes of time, conveying a majestic poetic essence through stillness and motion.

Since the introduction of Western influences to the East in the 20th century, many painters have continuously explored the various possibilities of traditional ink painting. Through active dialogue with Western aesthetics, Chinese painting has achieved constant innovation and breakthroughs in form and expression, developing works that better reflect the aesthetics of the times. Its process of transformation aligns perfectly with the spirit of the Cultural and Creative Arts Expo. This edition’s “Masters Invitational Exhibition” specially features works by two great masters from China and Taiwan—Wu Guanzhong and Zhang Daqian. Wu Guanzhong bridged East and West, pioneering a new direction for traditional painting with his unique color-ink style, while Zhang Daqian gained international fame for his splash-ink landscapes infused with Western abstract elements. Works by these two late masters often sell for high prices at auctions upon release, but at this expo, every visitor has the chance to feast their eyes and appreciate up close the extraordinary aesthetic worlds of these masters.

A Forest of Art by International Masters

In recent years, many Taiwanese artists have stepped beyond national borders, with their works making waves in the international art market. Through the Taiwan Cultural and Creative Arts Expo, works by world-renowned masters are brought together, showcasing the spectrum of creative expression in contemporary art from Taiwan and around the world. In the field of painting, artists such as Liu Chi-wei, T.C. Yin, Hsiao Yü-chen, and Yang Sanlang were invited, and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama also exhibited her series. Liu Chi-wei’s self-portrait uses his distinctive rendering and paper blending techniques to sketch his own personality and characteristics, with symbolic signatures and the year set against the background.