Chuang was born in Beijing in 1934. His father was renowned calligrapher and former National Palace Museum vice director Chuang Yen (1899-1980) and Chuang Che’s talent for calligraphy and painting comes from a family steeped in Chinese academia and culture. After graduating from the Department of Art at National Taiwan Normal University, he joined the “Fifth Moon Group” and promoted the combination of “Chinese literati painting tradition” and “Western abstract expressionism.” The diverse contemporary style of modern Taiwanese painting is directly attributable to the modernization movement led by Chuang Che, a movement on which he made an indelible mark. At the same time, Chuang is also one of the most important Chinese members of the abstract art world, following in the footsteps of such French-based Chinese artists as Zhao Wuji and Zhu Dequn.
Chuang Che has always emphasized the painting expressionism of his work, utilizing “abstraction” to guide the holistic structure of paintings, while precisely coordinating the combination of tones and the details of pattern and texture. Indeed, it is this unique duality that makes “holistic view and microscopic vision” the perfect analytical lens through which to view Chuang’s creative work. The pieces displayed in this exhibition range from oil paintings to acrylic works and viewers will find the line between eastern and western expressive methodology obscured throughout. Chuang has resided in New York for many years and mapped a path through the world of abstract art that has been uniquely Chinese in its embrace of “Eastern abstraction” and “Western landscapes.”
More recently Chuang Che has identified seven key elements in painting: “I have realized as I age, painting, firstly, must be precise; second, must be merciless; third, must be enduring; fourth, must be steady; fifth, must be smooth; sixth, must possess depth; and seventh, must be weighty.” Whether in terms of the artist’s creative “ideas and technique,” the “medium, form and meaning” of the work itself or the sense of “intrigue and beauty” conveyed to viewers, 78-year-old Chuang Che presents works that contain a well rounded sense of the artist’s world view and something for everyone.
Because of the difference between abstractionist structure and natural appearance, Chuang asks viewers to come to their own conclusions as they ponder his art, in the belief that such interpretive richness adds to the creative mystique of the work.
