DEMOS CHIANG: Shin-ga

Ginza New Gallery

January 13 - February 4, 2023

INTRODUCTION

Not only a painter, Chiang wears many hats: as a multi-creator, digital art curator, and designer, suggesting a literal “omnidirectional artistic creation”. While familiar with traditional Chinese arts such as calligraphy and ink painting, his Western upbringing has led to his creational core in “the intersecting of East and West” naturally. In the art of Chiang, expressionistic techniques of inscribing fragments of multiple realities and the Eastern aesthetic of “marginality” coexist symbiotically. The art is complete only when the viewer’s imagination brings the work in contributing to Chiang’s creative act. His choice of animals is a key motif to express his beliefs that they are the most qualified to represent human beings without any boundaries. By making full use of radical approaches, he incorporates animals into an exquisite intermixture of poetry, calligraphy, and painting. His works provide a three-dimensional aspect as his animals are “carved out” and coming to life.

For this exhibition, Chiang looks back on his life, in a “succession of encounters between East and West”, choosing two key motifs: the dragon and unicorn-the former symbolizing East, the latter, the West. Both creatures exist only in the imagination but, embody the incarnate cultural characteristics of both worlds. The artist never ceases to pursue the endless romanticism which emerges only from the amalgam of both.

The ‘East and West’ that have nurtured the artist’s innermost being, are reborn under the contemporary vocabulary. We cordially invite you to experience the intensity and vivid metamorphosis portrayed by Demos Chiang.

DEMOS CHIANG

Exhibition off screen

As an artist, my role is to visualize fragments of my life and reconstruct realities into powerful art pieces. Yet, in these pieces, I dare to leave enough room for “gaps”, the “unfulfilled”, and the “imperfections” in hopes that the viewers can overlay their own experiences. And that moment of integration is when my art is complete.

This exhibition: “Magizoology”(神畫), is a term created to describe the study of fantastic beasts in “Harry Potter”. This will be my first attempt to portray beings that only exist in the world of imagination. Art is mostly a matter of the imagination and an artist, in many ways, are rare fantastical beings.

Echoing my own life, “East meets west” has always been my experience. Hence the choice of the dragon and unicorn as the main subjects for this exhibition. The former, represents eastern tradition and the latter western imagination. They reflect on the preferences in eastern philosophy and western scientific roots. My belief is by combining both, a world of romance appears.

Unicorn and his friends

Dragon and his friends

Sculpture

Jewelry Collaboration

ABOUT

DEMOS CHIANG

DEMOS CHIANG

With his family roots and Western education as a teenager, Chiang's design and artistic creations are a contemporary fusion of Eastern and Western cultures and a new literati style. At the age of 30, he received outstanding achievements in commercial design and many international awards. In recent years, his artistic talent and connoisseurship have manifested in paintings, installations, sculptures, multi-media art, and art sneakers.

 

The works express the artist's observation and concern for the world through anthropomorphic animals, they are also a record and expression of the artist's inner feelings, allowing the viewer to read his sensitive nature, his equal heart towards all beings, and his sincere attitude towards life. In particular, the poems inscribed in English on each work are full of true feelings and philosophical reflections, a continuation of the Chinese literati tradition of painting and calligraphy; the painting techniques, such as the use of lacquer and water, splashing, scraping, and other Western techniques, produce variable texture, create rich layers, and bring out a sense of speed and fluidity through the brush. In terms of sculpture, Chiang uses the concept of vacuum to explore time and the transience of life.

 

He was invited to the 2021 Chengdu Biennale - Super Fusion as the main exhibiting artist with his installation works held in high regards.

DEMOS CHIANG: Shin-ga
January 13 - February 4, 2023

Ginza New Gallery

6-4-16 Ginza, Chuo-ku Tokyo, 104-0061, Japan
Tel: +81 (0)3 3574 6161
Fax: +81 (0)3 3574 9430
Opening Hours: 11:00 - 19:00
Closed: Sunday, Monday
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