Acrylic on canvas

180 x 140.5 cm. 70 7/8 x 55 3/8 in.

Titled and signed in Chinese, dated on the reverse
EXHIBITED
30 Jan – 7 Mar 2011, Behind the Visible: Liu Shih-Tung, Lai Chiu-Chen Exhibition, Lin & Lin Gallery, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Lin & Lin Gallery, Taipei
Important Private Collection, Asia

Note: An exhibition label from Lin & Lin Gallery Taipei is affixed on the reverse

Wild Imagination, Determined Marching
Lai Chiu-Chen's modern fairy tale

Born in 1970s, Lai Chiu-Chen studied in the Taipei National University of the Arts, and chose art creation as his professional career ever since graduation. His works are very distinguishable in style. His figures are cute, smart, and pluralistic, wandering in a two dimensional world with anger or sweet, which guides the viewers to jump out of their daily life. Many awards confirmed his achievement of art, including the First Prize of the Taipei Arts Awards and the art awards of Dr. Stanley Ho Foundation. Lai also held exhibitions in the Seoul Museum of Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, with his works collected by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Shanghai Long Museum and other institutions.

Cross-Located Tankman mainly consists of a tank soldier with a helmet, with a ID photo-like the big face filled up the canvass, impressing every viewer. The medals on his clothes tells his rank in the army and stories left behind. The downward lips and smile folds indicate his internal feelings, while the double-cross reflected on his glasses suggests that he is on duty in some mission. Lai presents such a moment on the painting like a fragment of the film of a movie, asking people to pay attention to the situation unknown to the tank soldier. The round glasses of the tank soldier, rectangular face, and straight corner of the lips, are deconstructed toys in the hands of the artist. He reconstructs and integrates these with his brushes, to present us the soldier's face and look, creating a geometric vocabulary. The bold implied colours separate all these, providing an extremely strong visual impact. In the painting techniques, Lai applies a thin spread of paints and repeats the layers into manifold. But with a discreet burnish, the different layers hidden behind present themselves to us, enabling us to see the multi-layered paints and their infinite change and subtle texture. All of these characters of the painting, Cross-Located Tankman, bring us the old school taste only exists in those old painted toys buried in our memories. It not only guides the viewers to a surrealistic mental world, but also enables people to feel the creation ideology of the artist, “never play by the rules”, hiding humor in philosophy, and presenting essence in appearance.

Price estimate:
HKD: 120,000 – 150,000
USD: 15,500 – 19,400

Auction Result:
HKD: 141,600