Chung You-Hui: Energy at Eighty
- Exhibition Date:2026-05-16 ~ 2026-07-12
- Exhibition Location:Exhibition Room A
Chung You-Hui: Energy at Eighty
Spanning creative practice, academic research, and educational promotion, Chung You-Hui’s artistic career holds a pivotal and influential position in the history of modern Taiwanese printmaking. The exhibition Chung You-Hui: Energy at Eighty is not only a retrospective of the artist’s eighty-year journey, but also a visual exploration of energy, nature, and cosmic order.
During his studies at the Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, Chung established a solid artistic foundation under the mentorship of numerous masters. Inspired by Professor Liao Shiou-Ping, he solidified his lifelong creative aspiration to explore existence through the medium of printmaking. His subsequent experience in advertising design and newspaper art editing deepened his understanding of image reproduction and visual communication. Upon returning from Japan in 1987 with an MFA from the University of Tsukuba, he channeled his expertise into a driving force for printmaking education, founding the Printmaking Center and the Graduate School of Printmaking at the National Taiwan University of Arts, becoming a helmsman guiding the course of modern printmaking.
In Chung You-Hui’s creative world, “Energy” is the central theme. He views printmaking not as a simple technique, but as a ritual of physical labor and the accumulation of time. Through repetitive plate-making, printing, and transferring, he refines abstract life experiences into concrete visual expressions. With printmaking as the epicenter, his work radiates outward into oil painting and mixed media, demonstrating a powerful vital momentum. The recurrent imagery of grass and leaves in his works stems from a meticulous observation of the everyday, embodying the philosophy of “a universe in a single leaf,” and sublimating tiny leaves into energy carriers that embody resilience and continuity.
The evolution of his artistic style is a journey from cultural exploration to internal perception. The early Eastern Cultures Series explored the laws of the universe through text and temple iconography; the 1983 awardwinning work Evergreen served as a crucial turning point in his integration of symbolic motifs. During his time in Japan, the Window Series opened a vista for transitioning from external symbols to spiritual contemplation; the window frame transformed into a psychological intermediary, translating external nature into an inner landscape. After returning to Taiwan, the Phenomenon Series explored existential structures through geometric archetypes. The 1990s marked a creative peak with the Colorful and A Song in Praise of Life Series, where he used the “plate” as his brush, employing high-saturation colors and the rhythm of grass and leaves to symbolize the robust breakthrough of life within limitations. Subsequent series such as Roller Shades and Mood & Life utilized cutting, collage, and transparent layering to create profound psychological projections between concealment and revelation; among these, White Mood earned the Gold Prize at the Qingdao International Print Biennial.
As he entered his mature stage, the creative vocabulary of the Song of Nature and Natural Energy Series became increasingly free. Recent series like Energy Kaleidoscope, Energy of Ten Thousand Leaves, and Flow employ repetitive and expansive compositions to evolve the picture plane into a continuous field of energy, echoing the continuity of life consciousness. In the Abundant Colors Series, he demonstrates immense artistic openness by integrating printmaking, ceramics, glass, and installation, embodying the artist’s harmonious, liberated, and boundless state of being at eighty.
This exhibition features approximately two hundred selected works, offering a comprehensive presentation of the evolution of Chung You-Hui’s style. In the frantic pace of contemporary life, the gentle strength and introspective spirit inherent in his work provide viewers with an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between nature, life, and the self. We cordially invite you to experience the abundant energy nurtured by the fusion of art and life.