"I thought I'd get a weeklong punishment for writing that," Chen said Oct. 25, referring to the penalty of being confined to the barracks during holidays. "But it turned out totally different. I was brought to a military court and sentenced to prison for two years." The period from 1969 to 1971 was during the golden time of his life from age 20 to 22, but the inexplicable punishment stripped away his freedom and had a great influence on his art. "It was like doing two years of graduate school in politics for free, sponsored by the Kuomintang," he joked.
Even though Chen can make fun of it now, he took those days seriously at the time. He used his paintings to portray the lives of victims in the White Terror era, when political activities were suppressed in the 1950s up to the late 1980s. These two years should not have been in vain, so he decided to apply his experience and feelings for political offenders to creating art. This contributed to various series of oil paintings, such as "Political Offender" and "Virtual Monster."
Chen cast the people he met in prison as the characters in his works. There were around 30 people he was very familiar with, since he stayed in two different cells, each holding up to 16 people in a limited space. When they had a break, people would chat with one another outside. Chen got to meet other prisoners and hear their stories.
"In prison, there were still groups advocating unification and independence," he said, referring to the political stances of supporting Taiwan or China identity, "and they would argue if anyone offended them." He cited Ke Chi-hua, an English teacher in Taiwan famed for his grammar textbooks, as an example. Ke held strong Taiwanese convictions, so few people would challenge him directly to his face, not to mention disclaiming the contribution Taiwanese people could make to society. Chen pointed out that even though these young men were locked behind bars, they did not really give in nor change their minds easily.
Another rebellious prisoner was Guo Jen-chun, who was imprisoned for helping an opposition candidate run in the Tainan City mayoral election. Chen called him "teacher" because Guo taught him Japanese during his six months in prison. Starting from zero, Chen progressed all the way to reading magazines and papers in that language.
Seeing Guo as an elderly uncle, Chen depicted him in the first piece of his "Political Offender" series. "He wears a prison uniform and it is the same clothes they wear in the army, down to the underwear and undershirt. The winter clothing is like the outfit of mountain climbers," Chen explained, also saying he used the works to show the true state of the prisoners. He continued to say that Guo looked very thin at the time portrayed in the painting and most people appeared 10 years older than their actual age, suggesting the mental and physical pressure that they faced every day.
Thanks to the general pardon granted by then President Lee Teng-hui in 1997, Guo was released from prison and had the chance to visit Chen's exhibition. After seeing the works, he told Chen, "I always knew that you were a real Taiwanese."
Though Chen appeared cooperative and polite in public, it was a disguise to conceal the defiant ideas on his mind. Thus, some supervisors might not discover this, which allowed Chen to continue teaching in school after he came out of prison. Since the government paid for his studies at National Tainan Teachers Training College, he was supposed to teach in primary schools for several years after graduation, but the prison sentence interrupted both his compulsory military service and teaching career. Fortunately, Chen's strategy of being cooperative worked out well. Whenever he was asked to join the then ruling party at work, he would agree without hesitation.
"All I want is to focus on my family and give them as good a life as possible," Chen said, adding that he had thought a lot during his two years in prison, and his attitude had changed. "Resistance through words alone does not work and is usually in vain. Only by united strength in elections can people create change," he remarked.
After Article 100 of the Criminal Code was abolished in 1992, Chen said that it was the first time that people could speak and criticize things freely. When Article 100 was still in force, people could be charged with sedition and imprisoned. This turning point in Taiwan's democratization enabled him to express his ideas through pictures.
The "Virtual Monster" series was an ongoing project, featuring abstract images of prisoners. Some faces were twisted and had asymmetrical facial features. These paintings did not have any title or explanation. Aside from the series title, the individual paintings were only labeled with numbers. "Good visual art does not require words to explain it," Chen stressed.
For instance, "Virtual Monster 15" features a lonely face with bold eyes. Chen felt compelled to create this painting after he heard a prisoner Chen Meng-he say, "It has been 30 years since I was freed from the prison, but I did not make new friends nor contact old classmates and relatives because they would be afraid." This implied that the government conducted surveillance on released prisoners, in an attempt to identify their political collaborators. Although these words could not be heard in the painting, Chen aimed to present a sense of helplessness and frustration beyond words.
"I hate to paint flowers and plants; they're just meaningless to me. I prefer to draw more expressive and critical subjects," he continued to say, "so I work very hard on painting now." The 56-year-old Chen cherishes his time and always looks for inspiration in life. He traveled to Green Island, where most political offenders were imprisoned. Chen regarded the place as the "holy land" for political offenders. "Many people buried their years of youth here and even lost their families. The history of Taiwanese people's human rights should begin here," he claimed.
"The sea and rocks inspire me to connect these scenes with the mishaps in the past," Chen said, adding that he used colors in strong contrast to portray the scenery and tried to imagine the feelings of the prisoners when they looked afar at the coast. Green Island's scenery would become the subject of his third series. He did some panoramic sketches first and then painted on canvases of around 2,160 square meters in area. He said he would like to make big pictures to create a daring and striking effect. "Since these are political offenders, they look frightening. I want to make them bigger than the portraits of Sun Yat-sen or Chiang Kai-shek, so visitors can look at them in awe," Chen said.
Write to Sandra Shih at sandrashih@mail.gio.gov.tw