Taiwan Today

Until last year, the top prize of the Japan Illustrators’ Association (JIA) Illustration Award had never gone to a Taiwanese artist. This changed in August 2015 when Liu Ching-wei (劉經瑋) received the Grand Prix for his colorful and thought-provoking images, brought to life through a combination of finely honed hand-drawn sketches and digital artistry.

The annual JIA competition has become a major event for illustrators from around the world, with submissions pouring in each year from artists in countries such as Canada, South Korea and the U.S. Liu’s winning pieces, chosen from a pool of 348 works by 174 illustrators, are part of a series he named The Little Bag, which portrays the wanderings of an anthropomorphized suitcase. The forlorn piece of abandoned baggage roams dreary towns and cities, feeling incomplete without an owner. Throughout the series, it encounters other discarded bags and eventually they band together to form a circus in order to bring joy to the world.

According to the artist, the premise for the work was given to him by well-known Taiwanese writer and publisher Logan Hsu (許榮宏). “It’s about searching for one’s individual values,” says Liu, who owns a graphic arts workshop called Devours Restaurant Studio in Taipei. Regarding the series, he notes, “the lead character is a little whitish object that often escapes the attention of viewers.”

The positioning of the protagonist away from the center of the works, in which bright colors and elaborate details contrast with dark shadows and forbidding characters, won praise from the award’s selection committee, which included JIA President Takahiro Kanie, himself a famous illustrator. In a statement on the award’s official website, Kanie commended Liu for his creative use of colors and patterns, which he said differed from the styles typically seen in Japanese art. The artist’s works were also praised by the committee members for exuding what they called an existential feel that transcends national boundaries. They said Liu’s pieces offer a viewing experience “as satisfying as seeing a movie” thanks to his lively depictions of characters and street scenes.

Liu points out that in the illustrations the little bag is often seen traveling down streets and alleys lined with signs bearing traditional Chinese characters. Taiwan is one of the few places where these characters are still used, he notes, and so he chose to include them in his works. “On the international stage, using Taiwanese culture as an inspiration can be quite advantageous,” he says.

The use of local elements is an approach encouraged in the Department of Visual Communication Design at Asia University in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, where Liu completed his undergraduate studies and is currently working toward his master’s degree. “I liked my art class in senior high school where I learned about watercolor and oil paintings. But I was left wondering what to do for a career,” Liu recalls. “Then as a university student I began seeing a promising future in design and illustration.” Today, his studio produces commercial illustrations and book covers as well as Christmas cards that are sold at outlets of the Taipei-based Eslite bookstore chain.

The artist grew up in southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City in a military dependents’ village near a major naval base. In recent years, such villages, which sprang up around Taiwan to give shelter to military personnel and their families who moved to the island from mainland China with the Nationalist government in the late 1940s, have been a target of cultural preservation projects. In these communities, aside from a select few who were assigned to homes constructed during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945), most of the officers and soldiers who came over from the mainland lived with their families in hastily built units, often crammed side-by-side with limited interior space. These congested villages commonly fostered strong ties between residents and were typically good environments in which to raise children, who benefitted from neighbors who were more like extended family. “The memories of my hometown’s lanes and alleys act as inspiration for my illustrations,” the artist says.

History is very important to Liu. In order to bring his works to life, he places a strong emphasis on small details, many of which find their origins in Taiwan’s past. He points to the influences brought by Japan when it occupied the island, and the impact of the mainlanders who arrived in the late 1940s. All the people who chose to make a home in Taiwan brought with them their cultures and values, and helped to shape the nation, Liu notes. He says he once traveled to Neiwan Village in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu County, strolling in the colonial-era town that once prospered thanks to booming mining and logging industries. The trip gave him the impression of visiting a small Japanese city, since Japanese-style buildings and writing are still common sights in the tiny hamlet. Scenes such as these are reflected in The Little Bag series, in which objects of overseas origin are depicted because of their connections to Taiwan. The illustrator points out that double-decker buses like the one featured in his piece Make Up My Mind used to be a common sight on the roads of Taipei “before elevated pedestrian walkways sprang up around the city.”

Each illustration in the award-winning series, which is comprised of around 100 pieces, took Liu about two weeks to complete. He says he appreciates the value of artistic handwork, which is why he creates sketches by hand before digitizing the images and coloring them with computer software. The result is a beautiful and diverse mix of detailed elements, according to Yohei Nagao, a judge on the JIA award committee. In addition to the competition in Japan, Liu’s The Little Bag series has been shown at a number of other prestigious international events, such as the 2014 APPortfolio Asia Member, an exhibit based in Hong Kong for talented Asian artists under 35 years old. That same year, the series was honored in the Illustrations category of the Red Dot Award for Communication Design in Berlin.

The Little Bag is currently slated to be made into a picture book designed for children and older readers at home and abroad and will have annotations in Mandarin and other languages such as English and French. Meanwhile, film production company Hong-Ying Universe Co. in New Taipei City is considering making an animated movie based on the wandering bag’s story.

In November 2015, Liu went to Germany to receive another honor from the Red Dot Award for Communication Design, this time in the Packaging Design category. He earned the award for crafting striking gold-and-black boxes for a Taiwanese seafood company. Earlier last year, a series of works illustrating the excesses of the meat manufacturing industry, which Liu created while pursuing his bachelor’s degree, was selected to appear in the 2015 Student Show of 3x3, The Magazine of Contemporary Illustration in New York. “Taking part in competitions is the best way to gain international exposure and registration fees are reasonable compared with advertising costs,” Liu says. “Also, I can learn from other artists’ works.” For example, he adds, Japanese artists have a unique grasp of the subtle nuances of drawing and the use of metaphor in illustrations.

Liu points out that, as a vibrant democracy with a pluralistic culture, Taiwan provides a good environment for artistic development, particularly with its highly mobile society and widespread access to mass communication. Yet, he comments on what he calls the local tendency to follow trends and popular styles, and goes so far as to say that some people just copy others’ designs. Liu believes that Taiwanese artists should seek their own unique styles, citing the breathtaking illustrations and fine artworks of James Jean, an internationally acclaimed talent born in Taiwan in 1979 who graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York. “If you pay close attention, you’ll notice his use of traditional Chinese characters,” Liu notes, referring to the Taiwanese elements embedded in the works. “We should learn to show more respect to and develop our own creative styles.”

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw