Chia-Ning HSU

A solo exhibition of young Taiwanese artist Chia-Ning HSU, featuring 22 paintings, most of which created in 2021, the exhibition revolves around the theme of “body” and “memory”. In addition to expounding on homesickness and her memory of time and space, HSU also depicts the sense of spatial oppression felt through her body when the pandemic alert was raised to level 3 in Taiwan in 2021.

Born in Taoyuan, Taiwan in 1996, Chia-Ning HSU is currently pursuing her M.F.A. at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Trained in fine arts, painting is her medium of choice. As she continues to delve deeper into her art, the rich color layers and unique luster of her oil paintings made possible through the stacked layers of paint over time especially resonate with the “body” and “memory” she is concerned with.

When I was creating the work 'Space' in Beitou Heart Village, I used chiffon to cover up furniture in an abandoned house. During the course of the exhibition, animal footprints and the mud they brought with them were left on the chiffon fabric. Although their presence was not witnessed, traces and mud marked the vestige of their existence. Therefore, I likened the chiffon furniture cover to a vessel that allows traces to be left behind, and the traces and mud left on the chiffon to memories.

After 'Space', I began to think about the body as a vessel of memory, imagining my body as a bubble that is constantly being inflated. This bubble is made of tulle and air is continuously being injected, blowing the bubble up into a full-bodied shape. As the air fills the bubble, air also passes through the fine mesh of the tulle, which alludes to life and time that do not stop moving forward. The bubble jiggles and traces are left, ultimately forming memories. 

 

“Memory has no form, but is stored in the body and cannot be disengaged.” Chia-Ning HSU explores the fabrics of time, space and objects through “traces left in the body by memory”, and taps into her physical experiences accrued in daily life to become aware of and locate the faint yet resilient memories stored in the body. Her works Warmth and Something We Familiar to are about the intimacy with her family. The former uses snugly and soft cotton fabrics and text embroidery to convey her feeling of “home”; the latter uses chiffon, a fabric that her grandma often wears, as the curtain tiebacks to express the feeling of family nostalgia. The different texture of the fabrics evoke different visual experiences.

HSU describes her body as “a bubble made of tulle”. The air that blows the bubble up into a full-bodied shape is the time and life that keep moving forward. The “tulle bubble” is filled with everything that life has to offer, as well as new emotions and experiences, all the while leaving traces of memories. Therefore, she uses light and fluid brushstrokes to express the lightness of memory and the tulle-like existence of the body.

During the COVID level-3 alert period last May, HSU felt as though her body’s senses were amplified due to the long hours of staying in her room, and she became intensely aware of the oppressive feeling of confinement in space. The Month When the Sky Disappeared is a depiction of her body memory during that time. The work is actually composed of 31 small paintings representing each day of May, illustrating the changes in light and shadow on the blackout curtains in the room. What’s particularly special about this work is the thickness of these 31 small paintings gradually increases until it eventually becomes as thick as an object, reflecting her feelings at the time. “The sky was getting farther and farther away from me. The blackout curtains seemed to be getting thicker by the day, like a concrete wall blocking the sky and the outside world.”

All of life's experiences leave traces on the body. Little by little, they accumulate, from imperceptible light rubbing touches to gradually deepening marks. These rub marks exist in various places, perhaps on an object itself or bound to the exterior of the object like a thin film. Or perhaps they exist in a space. Although their form may not always be clearly visible, and sometimes even blurred to the point of leaving only a faint remnant, the body just remembers it.

I deal with the relationship between the body and memory in my creations. The body serves as a vessel to hold the memories—things like light, color, smell, and materials are then evoked. The weight and texture of the paint, the feel of the brush against the canvas, the direction of the brushstrokes, the movements of the hand and body: these are the most direct feelings when I work. Meanwhile, memories are explored and extracted in such delicate, slow-moving, light and layered manner.

I paint with light brushstrokes to retain some of the canvas texture. This is my way of expressing the tulle-like existence of body and memory as I explore the quiet yet strong relationship between me and the different elements of time, space, and objects. I wander through these relationships that have no corporeal form but are stored in the body and cannot be removed to find the place where memory is located.

Through her paintings, Chia-Ning HSU is not only responding to her feelings about the world, but she is also exploring the particularity of painting as a medium. When the body’s memories are called forth—the weight and texture of the paint used, the feel of the brush against the canvas, the direction of the brushstrokes—these are a painter’s most direct feelings. It is in this delicately light and slow-moving layer-by-layer process that memories are fetched.