Lot 931: HUANG MING-CHE

HUANG MING-CHE
(Born in 1948)
Women in Eastern District, Taipei
signed, titled and dated 'Che; 1997; Women in Eastern District, Taipei; 1995-1997' in Chinese (lower left & on reverse)
oil on canvas diptych
181.5 x 182 cm. (71 1/2 x 71 1/2 in.) x 2 pieces
total dimensions: 181.5 x 364 cm. (71 1/2 x 143 1/4 in.)
Painted in 1995-1997

Private Collection, Asia

Both a painter and a sculptor, Huang Ming-Che's artistic evolvement shows a fascinating transformation of style and subject matter. While his early works feature rich symbolism, strict realism, completeness of pictorial content and structure, his paintings of the 1990s show elements of expressionism, cubism and surrealism in which his masterful abstractions and deconstructions touch upon various themes related to female individuals in the Eastern hemisphere.
Exemplary of this period, Huang's Women (Lot 932) (1991), Go to War (Lot 933) (1994-1998) and Women in Eastern District, Taipei (Lot 931) (1995-1997) depict a remarkable composition of the abstracted female body. These large-scale works show a layered entanglement of shapes, colors, forms and lines that create an intriguing and multifaceted image, filled with poetic and mystical elements, an expressive narration as well as a subtle yet ambiguous portrayal of women in Asian societies. Huang's sophisticated color composition uses a diverse palette of pastel hues in combination with bold reds, oranges, yellows and greens. The colors animate the flat abstraction and create sense of depth. As every aspect of femininity is reduced to a repetitive uniformity of shapes and mask-like facial features and expressions, the viewer recalls Modigliani's female portraits with their distinctive almond eyes, pursed mouths, twisted noses, and elongated necks as well as Paul Klee's cubistic and collage-like deconstructions of fragile fantasy worlds.
As an extension of his two-dimensional works, Huang enters the three-dimensional realm with his lacquered metal sculptures. Suspended in the air, Huang's Untitled (Lot 934) displays four highly abstracted figurative sculptures, standing on a thin metal base. Lacquered in bright single red, black and white colors, their somewhat un-proportional and asymmetrical, wavy body displays a shiny and pleasingly smooth surface. A peculiar continuation of their 'heads,' each of the sculptures wears a bright-red, shiny sleeping cap that morphs into a thin and spiky, slightly deformed swastika. A controversial symbol in the Western world, the swastika has been used as a symbol of good luck, welfare, prosperity or victory by ancient Buddhist and Hindu cultures. As logical conclusion to his two-dimensional works, Huang's sculptures display his artistic versatility and social awareness.