Kuo Wei-Kuo was the first artist I met when I started working in the gallery. He is kind and courteous and always gives positive encouragement to the younger generation. It`s hard to imagine a looked gentle artist who draws dramatic works. In the past works, the main character has always been "self-image." But in recent years, "self-image" has hidden in various kinds of animals or action figures, especially in this new solo exhibition.
Born in Taipei in 1960, Kuo Wei-Kuo loved to draw since he was a child. He never learned any drawing techniques but was admitted when he first time to apply for Fu-Hsin Trade & Arts School. He graduated from the Department of Fine Arts, Chinese Culture University and obtained the Master of Art at Taipei National University of the Arts. The impression of Kuo Wei-Kuo is that realism work with a weird atmosphere, regardless of his drawing style, content and form, which fully reflects his life and heart. During his time at Fu-Hsin Trade & Arts School, he developed mature realistic drawing skills. During the university, he gradually turned into surrealism. Later, he was influenced by Francis Bacon that makes him boldly released the gloomy world that buried in his mind little by little.
In 1985, he and the upperclassmen of the Department of Fine Arts, Chinese Culture University joined hands to organized the group "The Taipei Art Group", the predecessor of "Hantoo Art Group", then put himself into the Taiwan Modern Art Movement. After honorary discharge, Kuo Wei-Kuo became a part-time teacher of Fu-Hsin Trade & Arts School, set up an atelier, and set up a company to draw the appearance of the building. When he was getting used to those such days, at one time to chatting with Wu Tien-chang and Lu Hsien-Ming, the not reconciled feeling repressed in his heart was being awakened, prompted him to resolutely shut down the company and decided to return to artistic creation. But after all, the road to artistic creation is not good to go. Kuo Wei-Kuo was in a slump of artistic creation in 1997, at that time his life, creation and everything was not going right, he walked in a street and found a mirror at the roadside ruins. He looked at the decadent self in the mirror and took that mirror home, then after, he created a series of self-portrait work "Diagram of Commotion and Desire" which stunning to the people. The canvas as the stage, the dark and absurd scene, the naked and purest himself are placed in it, showing the artist's desires and fantasies.
Kuo Wei-Kuo has won the creative award of Liao Chi-Chun Oil Painting Award, creative award of Contemporary Painting, Li Chun-shen Foundation of Contemporary Painting, Taishin Arts Award Visual Arts Top 8 and the first prize of Asian Art Award by Freeman Foundation. His works are also collected by Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and Dimension Endowment of Arts.
In 1998, Kuo Wei-Kuo and the original team of The Taipei Art Group founded a new art group called Hantoo Art Group, who served as the first president. Hantoo Art Group has played an important role in the history of Taiwan's art development. It has been established for 21 years and continues to stimulate, maintain and promote the development of Taiwan's local art ecology. Many art groups have been successively established then successively dissolution. However, Hantoo Art Group has always stood still, insisting on holding exhibitions every year, continuing to use its influence to push art to society, stimulate new art creations, and characterize Taiwan's art history. Hantoo Art Group now members include Yang Mao-Lin, Wu Tien-Chang, Lu Hsien-Ming, Kuo Wei-Kuo, Lee Ming-Chung, Lien Chien-Hsin, Yang Jen-Ming, Lai Hsin-Lung, Tang Tang-Fa, Tu Wei-Cheng, Deng Wen-Jen, Chu Shu-Hsien, Chang-Ling and Chen Ching-Yao.
The solo exhibition "The Alchemy of Icon: The Occult Technique of Kuo Wei-Kuo's Paintings" was held at the Lin & Lin Gallery, and the curator is Shen Bo-Cheng. The exhibition will review Kuo Wei-Kuo's previous work like the series of "Diagram of Commotion and Desire" and the series of "Forbidden Wishes", also display new works, the mood of the 60-year-old into the old and new works reinterpreting, creating a different emotion from the past, explores Kuo Wei-Kuo`s fantasy world.
The Alchemy of Icon: The Occult Technique of Kuo Wei-Kuo's Paintings
Date: 19 October – 23 November 2019
Venue: Lin & Lin Gallery．Taipei
Photo by YIART
