CHIU Wei-Hsiang deliberately sets aside the rigorous discipline of academic training in traditional calligraphy and painting. Through seemingly clumsy and incomplete lines, and with a childlike purity of vision, he evokes the lingering traces of past life experiences in the most grounded and unpretentious way, expressing the sincere bonds of companionship and affection between people.
Born in Dayuan, Taoyuan, in 1997, Chiu draws his creative nourishment from everyday life, shaped by the warmth of rural communities and a distinctly Taiwanese sensibility. In recent years, as the Taoyuan Aerotropolis Project has brought about the expropriation of his homeland and the dispersal of family members, he has continued to create by “following memory.” As time passes and spaces disappear, the contours of objects in his paintings have gradually shifted from the concrete to the indistinct, silently reflecting the psychological ache of displacement and demolition.
After the demolition of his ancestral home and the passing of his grandfather, Chiu returned to his hometown to take on family responsibilities. Amid the daily rhythms of physical labor, painting at night became an ongoing ritual and an emotional outlet. Art, for him, is like a diary: it reshapes the spiritual legacy left by departed loved ones and the fading warmth of familial affection into an emotional dwelling, built upon the coordinates of a land that has already vanished. Each brushstroke carries both the fragility and the strength with which he preserves his breath in the darkness and continues moving forward.