Taking place in , a nomadic gallery initiating unexpected 鈥榚ncounters鈥 with cutting-edge contemporary art practice, Wait Until It Dries is a major exhibition of new works by acclaimed, engaging and forward-thinking, Taiwanese artist Shih Hsiung Chou.
The artist engages with art history by manipulating traditional oil painting to his own ends, creating experiments with material and form that drastically challenge conceptions of painting. This exhibition is a dynamic continuance of Chou鈥檚 Oil Painting series, consisting of clear Perspex forms filled with viscous black oil. The apparent simplicity of the artist鈥檚 work is deceptive: it investigates the role of painting in the contemporary era, subverting a historical medium, through oil which does not dry and is not applied to a canvas. This is, as the artist states,鈥榩racticing painting by other means鈥.
Chou鈥檚 radical use of material is transfixing in its reflective stillness, and its immediate disorientation could be compared to the effect of Richard Wilson鈥檚 20.50 oil installation, first shown at the in 1987. The heavy, thick black surface of the artist鈥檚 oil-mirrors intensify and confuse the viewer鈥檚 gaze. Chou鈥檚 Oil Paintings invite our speculation yet resist any fixed form or final explanation as their dark 鈥榲oid鈥 remains allusive.
The artist’s works are caught up in a continuous process of regeneration activated by the viewer鈥檚 gaze, movement and perspective. Accordingly, they are not so much objects as endless impressions, fixed in a timeless frame. The process that they set in motion, of grasping at the intangible, accentuates the imperfect relation between the self and its reflection, the eye and the reality.
Shih Hsiung Chou: Wait Until It Dries, until 6 February, Encounter Contemporary, Elys Yard, Dray Walk, Shoreditch E1 6NJ.
More information can be found at .
Follow us on Twitter for the latest news in contemporary art and culture.
Credits
1. Installation view of Shih Hsiung Chou’s Wait Until It Dries. Courtesy of Encounter Contemporary.
