Wen’s working method is a process of subtraction from darkness to light. “I carve into the paint with a stylus to bring forth the individual lines that are the central motif of my work,” she notes. These lines flow across the canvas in rhythms and frequencies that create depths and swells on the painted surface. Something of the self is lost in the resulting tangle and then regained, only to be lost again. Simplicity and harmony exist within the chaos of the world.
Color is used to expand the emotional range in Wen’s work: “my palette is drawn not from appearances but from the lyric and psychic necessities of my art.” The uniformity of line, from edge to edge and painting to painting, implies suppression of the artist’s hand in favor of objectivity learned from nature. In spite of this, her work remains deeply autobiographical.我的繪畫表達了個人與文化的歷史。在台灣島長大的我對於水的基本力量與大自然懷抱著一種深刻的親密感。身為住在美國的台灣人。我感到文化競爭的退潮與氾濫。在家鄉中誨人自律與無私的古代哲理已和西方世界的自我、疏離與欲望相抵觸、相混雜。我的創作方法是從黑暗到光明的一種過程。我已暗沈的顏料覆蓋在較明亮的底色上,趁著顏料未乾之際再用尖筆刻入其中,透過所產生的獨立線條帶出作品的中心主題。這些頻繁律動的線條在畫布上流洩,在畫面上創造出深度與隆起。其自身則有東西於糾結中失去、再現,然後再度失去。簡單與和諧就存在於世界的混亂中。色彩乃用來擴展作品的情感範圍的。在我的調色盤裡,顏色並非如表面所需,而是出自藝術中抒情與精神上的需要。我完成一系列關於西方宇宙論中四元素的大型繪畫作品,每幅大型作品都會應用到基本波浪圖形,而所完成的系列也將成為探索無垠與宇宙的一個豐富整體。
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Leigh Li-Yun Wen is a Taiwanese-American artist who resides in New York City. She received her MFA from the State University of New York at Albany in 1994 and served as a cultural ambassador envoy during the Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. She has exhibited in eighteen American embassies, consulates, and other government institutions located in countries such as Jordan, Malaysia, Singapore, Namibia, Botswana, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Denmark, and Poland. Wen was awarded a 1997 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and was honored to be the Artist of New York State by the New York State Legislature. In 2000, she was again awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and The Helena Rubinstein Fellowship. In 2001, She won the Lorenzo de Medici Award at the Florence Biennale. In addition, Wen was awarded Artist Grants by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1999 and 2005 and was invited by then-First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to visit the White House in 2005. A frequent nominee to a select list of sixty U.S. artists invited to the White House’s annual arts and culture reception, Wen is an artist held in high esteem not only across the U.S. but also internationally, in curatorial and collectors' circles, for her achievements and the unique character of her work. Wen’s works are held in many private and public museum collections, in the permanent collection of the United States Embassy in Barbados, and the American Institute in Taiwan.
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This exhibition is presented by the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan).
Leading support has been provided by Omni Development Company, Inc., the Taiwanese American Cultural Society of the Capital District, the University at Albany Foundation, Dorice Brickman, Mr. Alan P. Goldberg, William M. Harris and Holly A. Katz, Vicary and Peter Thomas, and Mr. Daniel L. Wulff. Major support is provided by Eleanor Holbritter Nasner and Margaret F. Holbritter, Mr. Edward Swyer, and Chester and Karen Opalka.
Season exhibition and program support is provided by Phoebe Powell Bender, Mr. and Mrs. George R. Hearst III, Charles M. Liddle III, Lois and David Swawite, the Carl E. Touhey Foundation, Inc., and Candace K. Weir.
Program and exhibition support is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
Promotional support has been provided in part by a grant from The Michele L. Vennard Hospitality Grant Program of the Albany County Convention and Visitors' Bureau Fund, a fund of the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region.