Chuang Pu is a leading light in the Chinese modern art world, a characterization which, in his own sense of that world, leaves him hanging in space: "I cannot see my work as Chinese art or Western art, simply art for its own sake."
He is, notwithstanding, a hard-edged abstract painter after the style of Josef Albers, famous for his (1964) Homage to the Square series. Chuang's work, though, has nothing of the mathematical definition exemplified by Albers and, in its backgrounds, leans more toward post-painterly abstraction.
For Chuang to verbalize or define his art is clearly difficult; the terminology always falls far short of that unique event which occurs when the work is viewed.
He commonly avoids the term "abstract;" the line and color that give rise to the pictorial structure of a work are completely tangible for him. He sees a work as already fact set before the beholder, but a fact dependent not only on its own line and color, but the spectator.
When people, struggling with optical effects that force some adjustment of the eye, turn to Chuang in desperation and ask what he means by a particular work: "Is there some statement within?" —for an answer, he simply turns the question about: "What do you feel? What do you see? "
I see, said I, the basic shape—the square creating the essential form for almost all of his paintings. Huge squares: vast space and ground divided into minute squares which not only combine for texture on his canvas, but also definitively proclaim the dominance of the square over Chuang himself. In recent years and, notably, in his March exhibition at Taipei's Spring Gallery, this has been a manifest characteristic of his strongest works.
To achieve this effect—the ground reinforcing an absolute composition Chuang and his dedicated assistant, Marie, work painstakingly over meter upon meter of canvas with a chop (the engraved Chinese name seal), stamping regular, one-centimeter squares over the entire piece. The result is then modified in specific canvases by individual treatments of the small squares—a range of techniques achieved with brush, palette knife, or even fine razor cuts, all ending up in varying the detail effect and internal inflection of the ground.
Prior to the most recent exhibition, Chuang did not make physical use of a third dimension except for that ornament or contrast obtained from secondary material-wire or cloth applied to create a surface stereo-texture, an implied assertion of sculpture.
The recent exhibition thus heralded a new development phase for Chuang in works taking on a sculptural aspect. Physically striking out into the room space, they specifically subordinate deductive structure to physical placement, to some extent, detracting from the implied sculptural quality of the artist's earlier stream. The products of this new phase, however, can not match that discernible poise which is the salient achievement of the older stream. New creations in the same exhibition from that earlier phase of development, indeed, evidence the artist's approach to perfection, the finesse of a creator in the later development stages of a familiar genre.
Through several exhibits, this sense of development was particularly exemplified in the incorporation of a bold statement in the form of an oblique straight line, contrasting with the color and ground of the great square. On one canvas, this was achieved by means of a fine length of bamboo; on others, metal alloy rods create the dramatic impact. Alternate placements of these accents in different compositions produce entirely unique pictorial effects, further demonstrating a vigorous development within the former stream.
Art critic Lu Ching-fu, last year, characterized Chuang's works via the following critical commendation: "Although considered an avant garde artist, Chuang does not limit his works to those subjects and forms and styles favored by so many of his contemporaries. His works may be monotonous, his message ambiguous, but they reveal the freedom of his ideas."
With this last exhibition, Chuang can hardly be further accused of monotony. As to "ambiguity," he prefers to consider his messages "illusionary." Indeed, becoming, for him, rather verbally elaborate, he went on to label the mode "illusionary art" and a conscious part of his purpose. If it is illusion, then each is free to choose his own interpretation. I saw dominance of the square, for example. Another observer, engrossed in the texture of the thing, saw the message as "something like embroidery." There is, obviously, no instantaneously apprehensible unity.
And in this lies Chuang's salient gift-to bring out composition and expression from line, form, and hue; to provide, for one, the illusion of embroidery; for another, the illusion of planes which lift out, defining themselves clear and free of their physical limits on the canvas; for both, the satisfaction in viewing that which makes it all art.
Acceptance of all this in the Taipei audience is the equivalent of the full experience of the so-called post-painterly abstraction school in America during the 1960's. And for the Chinese art lover, this is, perhaps, an even bolder step than for his 60's American counterpart. For imbued as he is in the traditions of Chinese millennial art, the Chinese art lover must sacrifice all preconceptions to appreciate Chuang's work as art.
Chuang's first artistic steps were obscure and directionless, his early training in art confined to the offerings of Taipei's Fu-hsing Trade & Arts School. But from there, he went all the way to the Institute of Art of the University of Madrid for five years of formal training. And though steered in another direction in Madrid, it was in that city that he began first to experiment in his current genre.
He saw Madrid, then, as an environment that did not really welcome this particular view of art. He realized that Barcelona was more avant garde, but his close friendships in the capital and his imminent marriage to Marie had become the focuses of his life at that stage, and he remained in Madrid over the next few years. During that time, his basic artistic direction remained more of a "hobby" than essential work. Before returning to the Republic of China in 1981, Chuang Pu exhibited six times as an artist, both in his own right and in group exhibitions with other Chinese artists.
It was the encouragement of friends, once home, that decided Chuang's present artistic course. With Marie's assistance (both financial and personal) in executing his ideas on canvas, Chuang has had five major exhibitions here in the past four years. Special recognition of his local contributions to the development of art came last year in the form of an award of NT$10,000 presented by the Mayor of Taipei on behalf of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
In creating any new work, Chuang Pu seeks finite inspiration through a process of trial and error.
Once his mind's eye has a composition in gel, he says, he must work it through; but in reality, the shaping work frequently refuses to accommodate the ideal, and experimental techniques and even drastic reproportioning may become necessary.
When the desired relationships between achievement and ideal refuse to materialize, Chuang faces heavy costs in psychological energy and, at times, in materials. His works range in scale from a fifty cm. square piece which hangs above Tania, his daughter's, bed to the five meter wall panels of the recent exhibition. So he embarks on the larger works, especially, with some trepidation for the daunting financial and emotional strains they might later impose.
Seeking a term to describe the trend of his manifest, short term future development, Chuang suggested that the movement is toward "minimal art," as evidenced in his expressions of special form and primary color at the Spring Gallery.
There is no Taipei school of modern art as such; most of the art schools fully introduce their students to little beyond impressionism. Notably though, at the National Institute of the Arts, Chen Shih-ming, through his work, encourages budding artists toward the bent of modern art.
And there are now a substantial number of modern artists working in Taipei, notable among them, Lin Shou-yu, Chen Shih-ming, Cheng Yen-ping, Hu Kun-jung, Lai Chun-chun, and Chang Yung-tsun—adherents of more figurative abstract art forms. Among the differentiating elements in Chuang Pu's work, is the striking sensibility of his art.
Chuang Pu finds special joy in the flowering of recognition at this stage of his art and in the excitement of experimentation. He sees Taipei as an excellent environment for his own personal artistic development. But the age-old worries of the artist haunt him, nonetheless—especially, the monetary requirements of a family and the extra burdens his work places on Marie.
Still, it is a life he prefers to that of the office commuter, even though, like many artists in other countries, to some extent, he must live a contradiction: He must develop in a concentrated way, divorced from many of the concerns of the society on which he depends for success, in order to achieve a sought after state of total intellectual awareness.