Capital Art Center
KIAF 2016

The artworks of “Calligraphy Series” present in KIAF from York Hsiao based on the career since York Hsiao was working on graphic design. He studied the artistic character styles and realize that there should be new ways to combine and construct the Chinese characters. He was trying to break out from the existing traditions. The ultimate goal of art is in the presentation of the idea instead of the image. He wanted to convey a lively idea. Each Chinese character by itself is already a form of art; he changed his view point slightly and make it into a picture, connecting to the current news stories and combining with the deconstructed words to reconstruct the stories in painting. It makes the art form close to life. The difference in the interpretation becomes the comfort window for each soul, making the art reflect the epitome of society.

This is the first form established by York Hsiao, his creations of shapes and colors with the understanding of art aesthetics. Chinese characters are forms evolved from hieroglyphic symbols, when they are combined using the six basic methods to form more complex words, thousands different words are formed from space and time variations. York Hsiao takes these totemic images and simplifies, emphasizes, exaggerates to create a series of master pieces. For example, the painting of the word “Door” which means “Entrance” is shown as boards of the door. This shows the meaning of the word and provides the visual aesthetics for the space of the painting. Of course, his carefully selected colors and composition techniques define all the essence of paintings in this series, such as “The Love of the Ocean” and “Fountain”.