Local Flavors

What makes something truly Taiwan?

If I was to paint a piece to define “me” as a person who grew up on this island in the 80’s, what visual features and color pallet would I pick for highlighting the space, the pace, the personality, and lifestyle that I have here in my motherland?

I believe that if there were a spectrum for Taiwan, the lineup of the spectrum is definitely not ordered in such a way that we’re used to seeing in fine arts clubs: from light undertones to heavy tints, from warm hues to cool colors; or, from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple.

'The Lure of the Local is the pull of place that operates on all of us, exposing our politics and our spiritual legacies. It is the geographical component of the psychological need to belong somewhere, one antidote to a prevailing alienation' (Lippard, 1997). And just as Lippard has noted about the specific significance of locality in this fast-moving world – I returned to Taiwan after my graduation to explore the place I grew up, tracing my own particular path.

I love what’s discussed in spatial poetics about man’s relationship with the first house he’s stayed in.

Acting on Gaston Bachelard’s philosophy, I continue to piece together the fragments of my childhood memory. The most vivid impression I have, was of a five-story apartment in Jingmei, where my grandmother lived. It was a five-story walk-up, with one household on each wing. There situated a circular window between the two houses. The staircase was not at all steep and narrow, like its ancient cousin in such walk-ups, but wider and spacious, quite easy to walk on. The walls surrounding the staircase were painted in two colors: white on the top portion, and green on the bottom. It’s the balcony that greeted me first when I walked in, where I got a clear view of the alleyways down below and families across the street. Next I pushed open the scraggly sliding door to enter the living room. The alleyways were quiet and free of the bedlam of rushing cars; but the sounds of piano practices and cooking were very clear, and deeply imprinted in my head. I loved visiting the traditional market in Jingmei, coming home with a bag of colorful candy. I also enjoyed moving a chair into the kitchen to apprentice with my grandparents. Cooking was the major event of the day in my grandparents’ house, participated by all family members. My grandparents’ bedroom was installed with a wide bed, nailed together by several planks. The planks were covered with several layers of heavy blankets, where we slept. There was a huge terrace on the top, and my grandfather planted a wide variety of flowers and vegetables, using broken eggshells as fertilizer. My grandmother also set up several bamboo poles and clothesline for drying the laundry. As I remembered, my elder brother and I loved singing and dancing up here.

I decided to look for my own creative space at the end of last year, and I chose Tainan. I could revisit my Jingmei memories here in Tainan, because the windy alleyways were rife with a sense of residential identity shared by the common folks. During the evenings, cooking fire was lit and woks were prepared across the neighborhood to ready for dinner. I made my guess at what everyone was cooking with my sense of smell: steamed fish for the Wu family, and pork stew for the Lee’s. Also, noises of motorcyclists and bikers rushing home for dinner began to sound. Amid all the family clamor, a sleuth of fresh noises also emerged: TV’s, mahjong, ear-piercing musical instrument practices, and the occasional screams from fussing children and the yelling from mothers. At 8:30 on the dot, families rushed out of the door and assembled by the mouth of the alleys for the garbage truck, where short English lessons and “the Prayer of the Maiden” were played. 80 percent of the lights were out by the time 10:00 rolled around, leaving night owls like us to stand guard. In addition to the human touch, Tainan’s glorious history and low-key, genteel culture also underscored life here with an enchanting flair. Unlike the quick paces in Taipei or Kaohsiung, Tainan enjoys an Italian-esque, slow lifestyle, hanging on to their customs, culture and traditions with a tenacity, fashioning a Tainan that I come to love, a Tainan that’s close to my heart.

Feeling a rush of passion, I picked up the paintbrush and wanted to eternalize this sense of locality that I’ve been hunting for since returning to Taiwan. But I experienced a tremendous obstacle when I considered the color pallet. I tried to copy what I saw faithfully, but the piece turned out to be clumsy and dull; I followed my previous trainings by the book, and the work looked fine and harmonious, with an additional European glow; yet it lacked a Taiwan-only flavor.

And I understood all of a sudden: the color pallet, and the notion about color in Taiwan’s lifestyle are a far cry from the European version. Western coloring and hues are characterized by the rhythm of light; and by walking closely with the light, artists successfully recreate the European space, cadence, and lifestyle preferences. The tints and tones in Taiwan are drastically different. I have yet to learn what defines Taiwan’s distinctive personality, and I know that the island’s lovely and down-to-earth life paces are indescribable.

I believe that if there were a spectrum for Taiwan, the lineup of the spectrum is definitely not ordered in such a way that we’re used to seeing in fine arts clubs: from light undertones to heavy tints, from warm hues to cool colors; or, from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple. Taiwan’s own spectrum is not scientifically tangible.

How would it be ordered, then?

The question inspired me to delve into researches on coloring. The pieces shown in the exposition featured my observations and experiments with coloring, and can be roughly divided into four sections: photography, spectrum, paintings, and artifacts. The photography category features a series of works on “what makes something Taiwan?” as a collection of my photographs on Tainan’s sights and sounds. For the spectrum category, it introduces colors commonly seen in our life, colors that were mixed and matched by greasepaint. It’s the color of a single artifact, or a single community; different colors for different canvasses to bring to life the spectra we collectively assemble unconsciously. For paintings, I tried to depict a facet of corner with the colors I collected. Lastly, artifacts are devoted to my hand-on living art series.

Friends and family members - who were strangers to the art scene - found themselves laboring to understand my work after I returned home with a diploma. The fact that they had to sweat blood to see me in my work really struck a chord, and I began to think about rapport between art and the people. During my stint in Tainan, I also went about the creative process as an experiment by emerging myself into different identities, therefore, the pieces in this exposition bore various signatures: Ariel Kuo, Arielleira K, and Leira Ouk. I attempted to get a feel – or interpret – the beauty I try to convey with the three perspectives. Ariel Kuo was an extension of the academy-based artistic approach, with more clear-cut values and constructs, with art theory as her backbone. Arielleira K. was about freestyle creations, more in the vein of journal-like narratives; works in this perspective were a series of emotionally defined pieces. Leira Ouk was about functionality, an application of conceptual framework. I tried to experiment with writer Jiang Xun’s “lifestyle aesthetics” among the three identities, so as to inspire a dialog between the self and the surroundings. The full circle began with life, and concluded in the simple beauty in life. I hope to communicate my beliefs with the public on a more intimate level from the conceptual, emotional, and lifestyle point-of-views.

The works in the series mark a new beginning – the beginning of getting to know the sense of locality, the beginning of keener observations of life’s colorful pulses, and the beginning of better communication with friends. The emergence of the works wasn’t really theoretically sound, nor was it a conscientious dialectic of art history. Rather, it was because my life in Tainan has inspired me to think and create intuitively. I hope that these works may encourage you and me to look at Taiwan beyond all the glossy appearance of pop culture, and enjoy the friendly alleyway views beyond the magnificent landscapes. And I look forward to any critique from every art aficionado.