Lot 999: LIEN CHIEN-HSING

LIEN CHIEN-HSING
(Born in 1962)
Laboratory
signed & dated 'Lien Chien-hsing; 1998' in Chinese (lower right)
oil on canvas
89 x 130 cm. (35 x 51 1/4 in.)
Painted in 1998

Taipei, Taiwan, Lin & Keng Gallery, Lien Chien-Hsing, 24 October - 15 November, 1998.

Lin & Keng Art Publishing Co., Lien Chien-Hsing, Taipei, Taiwan, 1998, p. 100. (illustrated)

Taiwan-born artist Lien Chien Hsing came to prominence in the early 1980s with his elaborately works, applying an extraordinary realistic technique. His paintings are a beautiful homage to nature's wonders of waterfalls, mountains and oceans, a portrait of imaginary worlds and scenes of everyday life that reflect a close observation and examination of life. Recalling childhood memories and portraying pure emotions, a sense of underlying mysteriousness becomes a unique kind of magical realism - a heightened reality in which elements of the miraculous could appear while seeming natural and unforced. Lien's understanding of realism thus resembles the realm of dream and sub-consciousness. He employs mundane subject matters, juxtaposes activity and movement with a great sense of depth and distance, along with a harmonic and calmed color composition that increases the sharpness of the image.
Lien's sophisticated composition emphasizes a clear and well thought-out structure, a unique angle of viewpoint and a perfect balance between perspective and proportion. Applied in a thin and clean layer, his colors always seek to be representational and set the mood of each composition.
Although strictly realistic in style, his paintings carry spiritual messages, demonstrating an interdependence between man and nature and man's care for the environment (Stormy Night, Lot 1003, Wave Lot 1002, and Playing along the Beach, Lot 1000). Lien finds pleasure in the aged texture of materials as well as in the portrayal of nature itself, in praise of universal infinity. His emotional complexity is portrayed by secret gardens (laboratory, Lot 999), recalling the life-affirming concepts of the New Thought Movement, as well as man's triumphs and defeats, metaphorically depicted by a man playing bowling (breakthrough, Lot 1001).