Howard Chen

Biography

Born in 1971 and graduated from the National Institute of Arts, Taipei.

For many years, Chen has used thumbtacks en mass as his chosen form ofmedia, creating a varied perception of the work through displacement and theoptics of the arrangement within the space. In form, using the construction ofpoints, lines, and faces as the basis of the phenomenon, through optics and thesight of the viewer or position changing, the reading of the work can becompleted. This effect is known as his “complex visual texture”.

Chen’s work often employs the use of basic manual labour to arrange thewaves of thumbtacks. It expresses a minimalist aesthetic when view as anentity. However, each area viewed independently has the ability to convey a“complex visual texture”. The repetitive nature of the tacks and pins render achange in the qualitative nature of these intrinsically industrial objects,reducing its familiarity. Between the gaps and spaces, the viewer canappreciate and identify the warmth of the non-mechanical labour in the creationof these masterpieces – almost an homage to the great Chinese artists of thepast and the discipline and meditation of the Buddhist monks, all resulting ingratification through work.

Although Chen’s images are formed through a subtraction-process, via theindividual placement of nails, his work displays elements of both painting andsculpting. Thus, resulting in a multiple viewing experience, capturing andreplicating the traditional elements of Chinese painting documented in KuoHsui’s theory of painting (Lin Quan gao Zhi), The three ‘extensions’ of amountain.

"For a long time, I see the tack as a highly personalized material for predestine. Using a great deal of industrially produced tacks, I made a dimensional tack device using a form similar to group labor, with the greatest presentation of the structural material I'm trying to create a poetic sea of tacks or a physical scene with lights and shadows behaving strangely.

Recently, I've trying to re-digest my creative experience in the past in order to reassemble the meaning of carries, or I can say I've been reassembling the original meaning using tacks as certain particles. I have been also trying to recover the physical property of these tacks in creative experiences. Using lining up, reassembling, positioning, light and darkness, and expansion I've trying to express the new image of the carrier, the meaning for all the carrier are manufactured in a studio through artistic behavior and a physical phenomenon is produced.

In form, using the construction of points, lines, and faces as the basis of the phenomenon, through optics and the sight of the viewer or position changing, the reading of the work can be completed. The changes in brightness for the light and shadow of the tacks form a 'multiple visual muscular structure', which is the texture of the tacks formed by shadows and highlight. This can be a way of receiving by 'visual listening'. Hence, 'tacks are no more tacks and flowers are no more flowers'."