Research Statement

My research examines how painters of Chinese heritage enter — or fail to enter — the historical narratives of modern and post-war art. Rather than approaching painting solely through stylistic analysis, I focus on the mechanisms by which artistic significance is constructed across institutional, critical, and historiographical contexts.

Over the past decade, my curatorial and archival work has led me to a recurring question: why do certain artists become historically legible, while others, despite comparable artistic seriousness, remain marginal to art history? My research therefore explores the relationship between artistic practice, reception, and historical positioning, with particular attention to cross-cultural interpretation between Western modernism and Chinese-heritage painting.

Current Research

Artistic Endurance and Historical Positioning of Painting

My current work investigates the long-term historical positioning of contemporary painting through archival and comparative study. Since 2009, my curatorial practice in Taiwan has involved sustained engagement with artists’ studios, correspondence, and the documentation of artistic processes. Beginning in 2017, projects in Venice and other European contexts expanded this work into a cross-cultural framework, allowing comparison between Chinese-heritage painting and post-war Western art.

Through the organisation of oral history interviews, artist archives, exhibition documentation, and critical writing, I examine how artistic meaning is negotiated over time and how certain painters gradually enter broader historical narratives while others remain historically marginal.

Research Materials

・Oral history interviews with contemporary painters
・Artist correspondence and studio documents
・Exhibition archives (2009–present)
・Curatorial research notes and catalogues
・Comparative study of post-war Western painters

Selected Writings (abstracts)

Andrew Wyeth and the Persistence of Place

Abstract
This text reflects on Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World through a sustained encounter extending beyond the museum. Rather than focusing on iconography or biography, the essay considers how a painting continues to exist in the viewer’s memory and experience across time and space. By revisiting the physical location represented in the painting, I examine how artistic meaning is not confined to the moment of viewing but develops through repeated acts of recollection and spatial association.

The work proposes that the significance of certain paintings lies not in narrative content but in their capacity to preserve a mode of lived time. Wyeth’s painting records an ordinary, repeated action rather than an event, allowing the image to function as a stable reference point in the viewer’s memory. Through this perspective, the essay approaches painting as a medium that sustains presence beyond historical time, contributing to the broader question of how artworks acquire lasting historical meaning.

Original text available in Chinese.

Fivefold Light: A Model of Ontological Generation in the Painting of Cen Long

Unpublished research paper

Abstract
This paper proposes a structural interpretation of light in the painting of Cen Long, arguing that light in his work functions not as illumination, symbolism, or atmospheric effect, but as a generative condition of being. Based on long-term studio observation and visual analysis, I identify a five-part progression of light—field light, ontological light, vertical manifestation, self-generated light, and directional pull—through which existence is gradually established within the pictorial space.

Rather than analysing iconography, the study examines how material operations of oil painting (layering, glazing, and density of pigment) produce different modes of visibility. The paintings do not depict spiritual meaning through narrative or religious symbols; instead, spiritual significance emerges from the restructuring of the conditions of seeing. Light becomes a structural mechanism through which figures first appear, then stabilise, and finally acquire orientation toward the future.

By approaching painting as a medium that materially generates presence, the paper suggests a framework for understanding how contemporary figurative painting can sustain ontological and historical meaning without returning to traditional religious imagery. The model therefore contributes to a broader art-historical question: how artworks acquire lasting significance beyond stylistic classification.

Original text in Chinese. Full manuscript available upon request.